The Occupation of New Carthage
by Roguedragon1
Summary: In late 2544 the Covenant seized New Carthage, subjugating the human population to the horrific reality of occupation, degradation and enslavement. Witness this unique and untenable situation from both sides of the conflict, as both the Covenant and humanity edge steadily closer towards a terrifying discovery that could change not just the course of the war, but history itself.
1. Prologue – Camp 77

**Authors Note: Hi Everyone. I've had the general plan for this story in my head for quite a while. There's a few part's in the general plot that conflict with some of the latest established canon, so before you start reading it I'm going to ask you to forget about everything you've read post Nyland's Ghosts of Onyx (Harvest, The Cole Protocol & the Kilo Five novels.)**

**Please let me know what you think.**

* * *

**Prologue – Camp 77**  
**  
****Location: Covenant occupied human colony New Carthage**

**Date: 02 / 04 / 2545 (Human Military Calendar)****Human 'Re-settlement' Facility 077**

Facility 77 was a death camp. It shimmering energy barrier's stretched outwards for eternity, a fifteen meter high wall of deadly energy that trapped every living soul caught behind it. All humans who entered its cold embrace would die. Some, the weakest, would die quickly. Others would live a longer but still ultimately brief existence, worked to death in the hellish mines beneath the encampment.

Twenty thousand human prisoners lived inside the camp at any one time. Their lives were short and brutal affairs, and throughout the occupation no one had ever survived the camp's harsh lottery for over a month. Sangheili warriors stalked the prison camp, staging mass executions every few days to cull the camp's ever expanding population. From guard towers atop the towering energy pylon's which linked the crackling plasma barriers Kig-yar sniper's picked off stray humans at will with their powerful beam rifles.

Facility 77 may have been a new addition to New Carthage's infrastructure, but it was by no means an anomaly. Dozens of identically constructed facilities dotted the prime continent, and like spoilt children they gorged themselves on a never ending flow of human prisoners, bleeding the occupied cities white. Over the past week alone the death rates in every camp had quadrupled from all causes, and since the first days of the Covenant occupation of New Carthage six months previous, the colony's former population of ninety million had been cut in half.

* * *

The soft crunch of snow against the calm night stirred Anderson from his sleep. The barrack block was quite, the enslaved humans snatching the precious few hours of sleep the guards allowed them before dawn brought with it the next hellish day of life in the camp. A handful of prisoners shifted in the darkness. He could hear sobbing and somewhere in the room a prisoner was coughing violently. Human movement inside the camp at night time was punishable by death. The guards demonstrated that on numerous occasions and the perimeter snipers were always looking for movement inside the sealed huts.

Anderson concentrated, doing his best to block out the distractions of the other humans as he listened to the silence outside. Again he heard the soft crunch of snow, heavy footsteps and the course hisses of alien voices. Something was going to happen this very night, he could feel it.

Easing himself from the stale cot Anderson crept towards the closest window, careful to keep his back to the wall. He was almost there when he all but stumbled over a hunched form stooped beneath the plain of alien glass. A small freckled boy no more then ten years of age scowled up at him, his pasty dreadfully thin face flashing upwards in the moon light.

"Alex!" Anderson mouthed, his brow furrowing in anger, "What are you doing?"

"There moving around out there" Alex whispered, his words barely audible in the silence.

"Get back" Anderson hissed, pointing towards the boy's empty cot, "If they catch you, there'll kill you!"

Anderson had been a prisoner of the camp for but a handful of days and Alex had arrived only the morning previous, yet in that short space of time both man and boy were intricately familiar with the harsh rule of the camp. Alex was young and reminded the former UNSC communications officer of his own child, long dead now. He'd sworn to do the best he could to keep the boy alive and safe from harm as long as he could, even if that timeframe could now be measured in a matter of a few brutal days, or hours.

Alex opened his mouth, about to argue his right to stay further. The point was suddenly mute.

The doors to the dormitory smashed open, blasting the human occupants with the whipping winter chill of the blizzard outside. Prisoners stumbled from their cots, raising their hands as if in preparation for a search of the block. Anderson grasped Alex by the arm and navigated his way towards the growing knot of humans clustered about the stacked bunk beds preying the Covenant soldiers would not realize they had been out of their cots. Already between the jostle of shoulders, heads and stinging snowflakes from the outside he could pick out half a dozen towering silhouette's in the doorway, thickly set and at least two feet taller then a man. Elite's.

The aliens stormed into dormitory, rousing the remaining human prisoner's from their beds with guttural hisses and painful kicks. They spread out around the dormitory's edge, herding the humans into the centre as if they had been cattle. Alex glanced up to Anderson, the fear he was no doubt feeling plastered across his pale face. Their eyes locked, Anderson vehemently shaking his head whilst his hand tightened like a vice around the thin boys arm.

That very moment someone else tried what Alex had been about to do. A skeletally thin man made a break for the open door, and was gunned down in a hail of plasma fire. The humans screamed in terror, Anderson grasping hold of Alex's shoulder with his other hand and edging them backwards as the elites surged into the human crowd, dragging three more humans to the fore. Sobbing and pleading for their lives, the prisoners were lined up in front of the entrance and made to kneel. Three elite's formed up behind them, placed the sleek nozzles of their energy weapons to back of the prisoners heads and fired.

Anderson clasped his hand over Alex's eyes, fighting to keep the boy still through his sobs and tears as crimson blood and flesh splashed the barrack block's floor. One of the elites stepped over the bodies, thrusting a powerful arm out into the freezing night.

_"Humane's, moove."_

The order was by no means perfect english, but its meaning was unmistakable. The humans were herded out of their dorm-block, the whipping winds cutting through their thin garbs and into the soft skin beneath.

Anderson stumbled, painfully cutting his toe open on the uneven ground. Boots had long ago become an unheard of luxury in the camp, and like most of the other humans he and Alex were barefoot. Glancing over his shoulder he could see the elites were busily emptying the other dorm blocks beside their own, and together the shambling humans soon formed a pathetic miserable chain of humanity. Anderson watched as some fell to the ground. Those who were too slow to get back up to their feet were mercilessly beaten by the elites until they were left sprawled bloodied and broken on the snow. After the brutal execution no one attempted to run again.

Alex walked beside him, his small hand finding Anderson's and grasping his palm tightly. He no longer had the strength to restrain the boy, and could only hope that for the good of both of them he didn't do anything stupid.

"The Vat's" Alex whispered suddenly, jostling to get a better look over the tightly packed prisoners, "There taking us to the Vat's?"

"No there not" Anderson whispered, his throat now sore in the cold, "The Vat's are the other side of the camp, there leading us round to the main square."

In truth the extermination vats were exactly where Anderson had expected them to end up the moment the door to their dormitory was kicked down. But he had not lied to Alex, they were being herded in the complete opposite direction. The fact that they were moving steadily away from certain death did little to lift his spirit. He had taken careful note of their shepherd's, noting these were not their usual rank and file tormentor's. The camp guard elite's always wore dark blue armour while a handful, their officer cadre perhaps wore red. These elite's were clad in jet black armour, and the appearance of their equipment as a whole seemed more streamlined.

As the human column reached the main square, a parade ground at the edge of the camp where they would be lined up each morning Anderson glimpsed a convoy of parked Covenant hovercraft.

He pushed up on his toes biting down on the pain to get a better look. They were large vehicles, transports, enough for dozens, perhaps hundreds of prisoners.

"What do you see?" Alex asked tugging at his hand.

Anderson bit his lip, muttering a silent prayer.

"Just do what they say, and whatever happens, stay close to me."

* * *

Suka' Nakitee watched the human prisoners being herded towards the waiting Shadow and Spectre transports, her gloved claw like hands gripping her Plasma Repeater as she scanned the mass of huddled slaves for any sign of potential troublemakers.

Her fourunit held watch over the main square between the slave pens and the camp's fortified gate whilst the rest of their lance shepherded the humans towards the waiting transport vehicles. At the first hint of resistance the four heavily armed and armoured Sangheili could cut the humans down before any of them even reached the camp's perimeter.

The tension between her unit could have been cut with a blade at that moment. It wasn't merely that a full lance of forty Special Operation's Sangheili had been deployed for mere guard duty, and human guard duty at that. Kalu' Texlusee and Zel' Tasolmee glared daggers at the passing humans, as if willing every single one of the shambling figures being herded into that very square to drop into the ever lasting flames of torment there and then. Of all of them Juha' Relusee, the fourunit's commanding officer was the only Sangheili who seemed to be even moderately relaxed as he stood beside her massaging his neck, plasma rifle gripped ready at his hip. Now Nakitee thought about it, in her short time with the Special Operations warriors she had never seen Relusee moved to true anger, even on this Forerunner forsaken world.

"They must be for retaliation" Tasolmee mused, "another mass execution. If we're taking this many prisoners the humans must have taken out a full lance, or perhaps a priestess."

Relusee shook his head, "They wouldn't take them from here. The hostages would be selected from among the local population, greater chance of catching the perpetrators family amongst them."

"And they wouldn't have deployed a full lance of Special Operation warriors for something so mundane" Texlusee seethed, clicking her lower mandibles in evident distaste, "The Jiralhanae, god's even the terrestrial's could handle simple human relocation."

Nakitee inhaled sharply, clenching her mandibles as she did her best to ignore the slight. She knew her new unit was still morning the loss of a fallen brother. For the time being they could only ever see her as an inadequate replacement for one who had likely been as dear to them as a blood kin.

"Their destination is not the execution square" Relusee concluded after a moment's thought, "Though whatever it is the Field Master's have planned for them. They will not doubt soon wish that it was."

They watched impassively as the Special Operations Sangheili began to roughly herd the human prisoners onto the waiting transports. The Shadow troop carrier's they were using were military models elongated along the centre by about a third. Nakitee recognized them from the open countryside of her birth world, though they were normally used to transport cattle.

A minor scuffle broke out among the humans. Nakitee blanched inwardly as she saw a Sangheili officer smack one of the humans youngling's to the ground before clasping the terrified child by its neck and hurtling it into one of the waiting transports. A few dozen rotations ago and such an act may have troubled her. Indeed Nakitee still knew of females back home who would have been moved to shock and even tears by the warrior's vicious act, and one of two of them have even tried to intervene on the child's behalf. Her time on this world had quickly quashed any such notions the young warrior had over such matters. A human was a human regardless of age.

From the edge of the square two Sangheili emerged into the midnight gloom. One she recognized as their section's commanding officer, Field Captain Orta' Ikorrandee, and the other…

"Forerunner's grace" Tasolmee murmured, "is that not…"

"Commander Taia' Korequee" Relusee answered.

Nakitee blinked, trying to connect the name to the myriad web of Sangheili officer's across the occupation force. She counted off her unit's immediate superiors and those of the neighbouring cohort's. She paused, counting back and trying to remember if she had missed one when the name suddenly clicked. High Commander Taia' Korequee, the former Master of the military Academy on Sepheria Luminare, the current commander of all Special Operation unit's on Nu Carthage.

"This just got interesting" Tasolmee remarked, rocking back on his heels, "at least we're not the only ones to be freezing our hind's off this night."

The two Sangheili paused by the waiting transports, the other fourunit's beginning to fall in as they were ordered back. Nakitee strained to pick up what they were talking about, but even in the dead of night they were too far away for her to pick up anything. Seemingly at the command of a flick of the Commander's wrist Ikorrandee turned and strode back into the camp, the lance's third fourunit at his heels.

Korequee twisted on his heel and walked towards the centre of the square where the remaining fourunit's were beginning to form up. He paused by the gathered Sangheili, exchanging a few brief words with the officer's, and then he continued on, towards them.

Nakitee glanced nervously towards the rest of her fourunit, thankful for the full fitting combat mask that she hoped would hide the anxiety that must have been plastered over her face. Up close it was easy to see why Korequee was still awed by the lower ranks. A full head taller then the Sangheili around him except perhaps Tasolmee, he was a powerfully built warrior and despite being past his prime possessed a physique that would put a full a generation of younger warrior's to shame.

Korequee drew himself up before their fourunit, looking over each of the Sangheili warriors with his pearl black eyes. His gaze finally settled on Tasolmee. The towering male stood firm, hooves together and back straight.

"Fel' Tasolmee" Korequee mused, scratching at his lower mandibles, "You're still alive I see."

"Not for lack of trying on the human's part" Tasolmee replied in all the demeanour of a grizzled veteran addressing an old comrade rather then a direct superior.

Korequee chuckled softly and shook his head, "nor a few Jiralhanae I would imagine."

Tasolmee shrugged his huge shoulders, "Be the battlefield, the tavern or barracks I do not care where they come at me. As long as it brings no shame on my family or unit, then anyone, be they dumb brutes or nameless vermin are welcome to try."

"Spoken like a true swordsmen of old" Korequee mused before twisting his head back to the Tasolmee's comrades, "and what of my other neophyte's."

"Well enough" Relusee snapped, eyes forward as if he was staring down the lateral prongs of a plasma sword, "missing my bunk around now."

"And no doubt the female in it" Korequee replied, Tasolmee snorted in laughter, pretending he had something in his throat.

"And what of our Academy's highest ranked sharpshooter?" Korequee asked turning towards Texlusee.

"Wondering why in the middle of the night a full Special Operation's lance is performing a task the Legionnaire's could handle Excellency" Texlusee replied dryly, her voice devoid of even a hint of humour.

"Straight to the point with a knife" Korequee chuckled, "good to see you haven't changed. Unfortunately this is a question I cannot answer."

"Classified on penalty of torture, branding and death?" Tasolmee ventured.

"If only I knew Tasolmee" Korequee replied with a shrug, "If only I knew."

"You did not order this deployment?" Relusee asked. It was the only time Nakitee had sensed genuine surprise in his voice. A deep unease twisted inside her stomach suddenly.

Korequee spread his claws, his grey palms flat. "My orders are to lead the prisoner convoy to an undisclosed military base on the edge of the central plateau which despite be being here for almost a third quarterly cycle I had no idea even existed. Our orders bare the mark of the Provisional Governor, whether or not they come from the Prophet of Penance I cannot say."

"Do you think he's acting without the Hierarch's knowledge?" Tasolmee asked.

"He's a politician Tasolmee" Korequee laughed, clicking his neck with a sharp jolt, "the day they start working together is the day something's terribly wrong. Best stay out of politics, in these times you'll live longer. Now, changing tact."

He clasped his powerful claws together, then produced a data crystal from his waist and threw it towards Tasolmee who snapped it out of the air with starting swiftness.

"We're moving out and your unit is on point, Tasolmee you're driving."

"That's not a good idea" Relusee hissed, ignoring the murderous glare he knew his friend would be directing at him.

"I trust him" Korequee chortled softly, "Kilshree, Texlusee, go and check the route is loaded into the Spectre's neural matrix, best we move now before the humans freeze to death."

"We would be saving the plasma to kill them" Tasolmee replied as he and Texlusee strode of towards the waiting Spectre's, "One way or another."

"And do not get lost" Korequee called after them, "I want to be back a Central Command before sunrise."

With a shrug of his shoulders the Commander turned back towards them, his eyes falling on Nakitee as if he had just seen her for the first time.

"And of course" he chimed, "I had almost forgotten. You are a full unit again, are you not?"

"Yes Excellency" Nakitee replied, her head still bowed in his presence.

"By the God's daughter look up" Korequee scolded, "I cannot be that ugly surely."

Nakitee raised her head, fighting to stifle a grin that pulled at her low mandibles.

"And how are you finding fourunit's latest replacement?" Korequee asked turning back towards Relusee.

"As acceptable a warrior as any who could have been selected" Relusee replied, neither praise nor condemnation detectable in his voice. "She may feel unwelcomed by some, but she is needed. Respectfully my Excellency, the Forerunners would be hard pressed to replace Kilshree."

Korequee nodded, his eyes sombre.

"And what of your own position Nakitee."

"I am honoured to be called upon to serve in the Special Operations Group" Nakitee replied, her voice soft yet firm, "I am not trying to substitute their loss Excellency."

Korequee sighed, clasping a strong claw like hand on Nakitee's shoulder, "Kilshree was a fine warrior my child. He was among the finest our Academy's on Sepheria Luminare ever produced, and he fell in service not just to the Covenant but to his kin, his brothers and sister beside him. Nothing lasts forever Nakitee, not Kilshree, not yourself or your comrades. Not even the human who killed him. He is at peace now, as we all will be one day. There is nothing to replace. Your comrades grieve for their fallen brother but make no mistake, they have accepted you as their sister by blood, as have I."

"Thank you Excellency" Nakitee replied, a boiling warmth rising from between her hearts.

Korequee nodded his head a fraction before twisting back towards the camp, "We will be moving out shortly, preferably before we are all thawed to the ground. I will rejoin you shortly, I must first go and step on the camp commandant's hooves."

With that he turned, striding back over the square and towards the waiting camp guards.

The last of the humans had trickled into the square now and were huddled beside the parked transports, waiting as each armoured Shadow was filled and sealed in turn. Nakitee scanned the milling crowd, wondering just what would become of the deplorable creatures. Her eyes settling on two scrawny human males, an adult and a small youngling.

Something nagged at the edge of her subconscious, drawing her eyes back to the two humans. Suka clenched her mandibles, looking them over once more and then the realization hit her.

"There" she hissed, thrusting a gloved claw like forefinger out towards the two humans.

"There among its kin. It's him!"

Relusee glanced towards her, tilting his head in a quizzical gesture

"You are sure, they all look alike. How can you tell?"

"I know it's him" she replied, "The human must have been scooped up in the last resettlement."

Relusee took her at her word, reaching up to the comm.'s bead is his helm,

"Commander, this is Relusee, we have verification on our target witness. Requesting orders?"

Nakitee waited silently, her claws tightening again around the powerful plasma repeater in her hands.

With a quick nod of his head Relusee acknowledged a command she couldn't hear before snapping up his rifle.

"Understood, moving to intercept target."

The two Sangheili approached the human prisoners, their weapons raised.

* * *

_They've recognized me. How?_

The question screamed inside Anderson's mind as he slowly raised his hands, conscious that one wrong move could see a plasma round punching straight through his chest.

Two towering elites; heavily armoured and carrying viscous looking plasma weapons came straight at them, the thickly piled snow crunching hollowly under their hooves.

_"Humane"_ the leading elite hissed, _"Sep Bakra."_

Alex huddled closer beside him, doing his best to shield himself from the Covenant soldiers. The small boy was terrified.

_How?_ Anderson repeated in his mind, _How can they now I'm resistance!_

The first elite, an officer perhaps shouted again sweeping a claw like hand through the air.

Anderson bit his lips, "I'm sorry" he said "I can't understand you."

How long could he last?

How long would it take for them to break him?

Anderson eyed the distant plasma barriers, wondering if it would not be easier just to make a run for it and let them shoot him.

They couldn't torture a corpse, and he wouldn't betray his cell.

The elite moved forward suddenly, thumping his gloved palm into Anderson's chest.

_"Backra!"_

Anderson gasped as if winded, stumbling backwards. Tenuously he lost his grip on Alex's hand.

_Back._

The second elite, of slightly slimmer build to the first, perhaps a female reached forward snatching Alex's arm in her long talon like fingers.

_The boy_ Anderson realized, _There not after me. What could they want this Alex? He's just a child._

Alex glanced towards him imploring, his muscles tensing as if he was preparing to struggle.

Anderson shook his head. Neither of the humans had a choice.

"It's alright Alex" Anderson said, careful to keep his hands where the aliens could see them, "It'll be alright. Go with them and do whatever they ask you to. It'll be OK."

Alex stared at him, tears forming in his wide eyes. He didn't believe a word of it.

As if in reply the second elite, the female took hold of Alex's other shoulder twisting him back towards the rear of the square. Her companion kept his weapon firmly trained on Anderson, the warning unmistakable.

Intervene and you're dead!

Slowly the two elites made their way back towards their own vehicles, the female frogmarching Alex away from the other humans. Before Anderson could see where they were taking him another elite shoved him forward towards the waiting transport.

In no time at all it seemed the last of the humans were loaded into the final alien transport, Anderson almost tripping over the vehicles lip as he was bundled into its cargo hold. Like a great serpent devouring its prey the humans were enclosed in energy field before an armoured shutter sealed them in darkness.

* * *

The convoy departed the camp in the dead of night, the individual Shadow transport's and their escorting Spectre's filing out under the watch of curious Kig-yar sniper's and Sangheili camp guards.

Nakitee's fourunit had point, Tasolmee displaying his less then cautious approach to driving. Texlusee as their sharp shooter kept watch with the mounted plasma cannon while Nakitee and Relusee took the conjoined passenger compartments on either side of the vehicle, Nakitee's claw like hand grasping the safety latch whenever Tasolmee banked a corner without feeling the need to brake.

They settled into the long journey, the calm night their only companion. Nakitee shifted uncomfortably in her seat, scanning the embankment either side of the human laid asphalt for any sign of movement, ensuring her plasma repeater could be snapped up to her shoulder at a moments notice.

Facility 77 was on the very edge of main settlements central plateau, far outside the normal boundaries of the main human habitation centre's that had spread across this world. Attacks this far out by the indigenous human resistance forces were rare, but not entirely unheard off.

Nakitee kept one eye on the road and the other on the holo-chronometer on her wrist gauntlet. Unit's quickly melded into a half quarter, but there was still no sign of the military base that was their destination.

Stiffing a yawn at the back of her throat, Nakitee stretched the muscles in her back, trying to judge their position. They had to be far outside the central plateau by now, and they had seen no other contacts on the road since leaving the camp. That in itself was not uncommon, for any form of human motorized transport was forbidden, and a planet wide curfew had been in effect since the Covenant occupation first began. Any humans they encountered on the road would have been shot on site. But they had seen no other Covenant movement either, no patrols and no resupply convoys. The roads were utterly deserted..

At the passing of the second half-quarter, Nakitee was fighting a loosing battle to boredom induced fatigue. She struggled just to keep her eyes open.

Sudden movement on the road ahead snapped Nakitee back to attention. Tasolmee swore as he braked sharply, the convoy skimming to a halt behind them as half a dozen looming figures materialized on the road before them. Pure survival instinct took over the fourunit's actions, Texlusee swivelled the plasma cannon on its mount whilst Tasolmee opened the Spectre's side compartments. Nakitee and Relusee emerged slowly using the opened doors of the Spectre as cover, their weapons trained on the shadowy silhouettes. In the illumination cast by a dozen lancing beams from the convoy Nakitee got a clear glimpse of their welcome party.

They were Sangheili.

Their fellow warriors offered no words of greeting, yet they kept their plasma weapons pointed towards the ground. One of the mysterious warriors stepped forwards and gestured towards the embankment with a wave of his arm. Up close Nakitee could see the Sangheili wore the jet black armour and combat harness of the Special Operation's warriors.

Seemingly in reply to his gesture, a section of trees and undergrowth which crowned the embankment vanished. In its place was a single dirt track which showed all the signs of having been cut through the woodlands very recently.

Optical Camouflage!

Not a single word was exchanged. Her plasma repeater still raised, Nakitee glanced back towards Relusee who gestured towards the Spectre. Their weapons still raised, they returned to their seats, Texlusee keeping them covered with the mounted plasma cannon.

Activating the vehicles energy core Tasolmee banked the Spectre into the entrance, the rest of the convoy taking his lead. Their wardens followed them in on foot, waiting until the last Shadow had entered before they reactivated the optical camouflage, the dirt track disappearing from the view of the road as if it had never existed.

Tasolmee edged the Spectre down the path with a restrained caution, his eyes scanning the dark undergrowth on either side of them. Eventually they came to a wide clearing dotted with towering energy pylons.

"Jamming towers" Texlusee commented from behind, "They've shielded this place from orbit."

At the far end of the clearing Nakitee could make out bunkers, bulbous plasma turrets pointed towards the sky and a series of fortified buildings. Already she could see armoured Sangheili warriors emerging from the compound, apparently belonging to same unit they had already encountered.

The convoy pulled to a halt just outside the complex, the Shadow's forming up beside each other in neat tidy ranks as the Special Operations troops dismounted from their vehicles. Nakitee emerged cautiously, the snow crumpling under her hooves as her fellow warriors formed a defensive cordon around the Shadow's, unsure just what was happening.

Taia' Korequee appeared behind their Spectre, seemingly from nowhere. Despite his considerable bulk Nakitee to her shame had not heard him approach.

"Keep the energy core lighted" Korequee said clasping Tasolmee shoulder in a huge claw like hand, "Be ready to move."

"Are they ours?" Tasolmee asked, his hand moving towards the plasma sword at his hip.

Korequee was silent a moment, his eyes surveying the compound. Tentatively he shook his head, "I could account for every Special Operations lance, cohort and brigade currently situated on this world. These are not our kin. Relusee, Nakitee, with me."

Standing tall and fully armed, the two warriors fell in behind their commander as he strode forward.

"Is the target witness secure?" Korequee asked without turning towards them.

"Yes Excellency" Relusee replied coarsely, "sedated and sealed in the Spectre's rear compartment. The human will remain that way until long after we return to Central Command."

"Very good" Korequee replied, his mandibles clenching tightly, "We'll deal with him come sunrise."

Already a small party of five had detached itself from those Sangheili guarding the compound and was making its way towards them. Four were warriors, armed and equipped almost identically to Nakitee's lance, yet curiously she noticed their armour bore no unit marking's, rank's or insignia.

The single remaining Sangheili was taller than the others and clothed in long flowing robes over ceremonial armour and helm. Nakitee recognized the symbol of the Vestal Sisterhood on the Sangheili's breast plate, her mandibles tightening as she realized just what had deployed their unit on behalf the Provisional Governor.

"High Priestess" Korequee concluded, validating Nakitee suspicion as he drew to a halt clasping his hands behind his back."

"Commander" the female replied, her accent clipped and pronounced which indicated connection to an ancient bloodline. "I must thank you for accommodating my request this night."

"Request?" Korequee mused, "Our orders came straight from the Provisional Governor Excellency."

The Priestess chuckled as she folded her arms, the warriors behind her waiting attentively,

"A mere formality Commander, to sweep aside unnecessary delay. You are well aware my position grants me such power."

"As is your right High Priestess, forgive my inquisition" Korequee replied, looking over her accompanying warriors. "Curious. It is well known your wealth is vast, though I was not aware the Vestal Sisterhood had subsidised and furnished its own private military."

The female cocked her head, her hands falling to her hips and for a moment Nakitee feared her Commander had gone one step to far. Rank, lineage nor reputation would be an adequate defence, as a High Priestess she could have had all their heads at the snap of her claws.

Thankfully the priestess seemed not to take offense at Korequee's prying. Subtly she gestured towards her warriors, "Private contractor's commander."

"Retired" added one of the Sangheili, "Fifteen Cycles as a ranger, and another Five within the Honour Guard."

"And handsomely compensated for their discretion" the female continued, "Discretion I must also ask from your warriors. Not a word of what they have witnessed this night can be breathed to others. When they return home each will find a generous sum deposited in their military account, please make them aware that I will not tolerate an abuse of my trust."

"Their mandibles will be sealed" Korequee replied, "I will make sure of it."

The female nodded in acknowledgement, clasping her gauntleted hands together, "My warriors shall take ownership of the human cargo. Your service tonight is almost ended."

Without acknowledging any direct command, two dozen of the Priestess's 'private contractors' swarmed out towards the waiting Shadows. The Special Operation's troops bristled, looking towards their commander for orders but Korequee waived them down. They did not like to surrender their charges to those they did not know, even if said charges were simple vermin. The Priestess's warriors unloaded the humans with a military precision even Korequee would have been proud of, herding the prisoners back towards the compound in a tight shambling file.

"Will my warriors be called upon for their, discretion again Ikarshree?"

Ikarshree!

Nakitee memorized the name, trying to place it with the Priestess's she knew were involved with the occupation. None came to mind.

The Priestess whose name was Ikarshree paused for a moment, considering the question.

"Perhaps" she conceded, "Many more deliveries may be required, and as I have already told you, they must be known only to those who partake. No reports, no words exchanged outside this compound, or punishment will be severe. Do you understand commander?"

"Intricately" Korequee confirmed, watching as the doomed humans prisoners disappeared inside the compound, "What will become of them?"

"Nothing you need be concerned over" Ikarshree cautioned, "After tonight, those humans will never be heard from or seen again. Your warriors are in no danger, my work here has the full sanction of the Prophet of Penance. Any subsequent blame will fall squarely on our shoulders Commander, your warriors discretion shall become their shield if necessary."

"Then I would advise an overshield" Korequee remarked.

Ikarshree chuckled again, "Point taken commander. Now I would suggest your warrior's return to their barracks, I've arranged leave to compensate the time lost from their bunks, discreetly off course."

Korequee nodded solemnly, clicking his mandibles in approval, "There is one other matter. It concerns our target witness, in respect to our special guest."

Nakitee saw the Priestess flinch at the words, her claws curling violently towards her palms for just a moment before she regained her calm composure.

"You have the human in custody?"

"Yes" Korequee replied, "But we cannot discuss such an issue here. You understand off course." There was a hint of smug reprisal in his voice.

Ikarshree paused for a moment, her interest clearly peeked, "Off course Commander" she conceded, "We shall discuss this very matter with him in the Central Spire tomorrow morning. Good day Commander."

With that the High Priestess turned and departed, her guards closing ranks behind her.

Korequee twisted on his heel, Nakitee and Relusee still standing to attention behind him.

"You're best assessment?"

"She's working against the High Council" Relusee answered, "I do not believe Penance nor the Provisional Governor truly understand the nature of her, work."

"Her warriors armour bore no markings or insignia" Nakitee added.

"Exactly" Korequee said, tapping his lower mandibles with a clawed forefinger, "No direct loyalties. The perfect asset for dirty secrets, easily deniable at a moment's notice and easily disposed off if such action is required."

"What should we do?" Relusee asked.

"For now" Korequee replied, "as she commanded. Return to your barrack's, sleep among your brothers and sister guard, and invest your loyalty in those you trust, watch those you do not."

* * *

Anderson fought against his fear as best he could, his nails digging unconsciously into the soft skin of his palms. Blood pooled from his clenched fists, dripping down his trouser leg and trickling through the toes of his bloodied feet.

The humans were bracketed, freezing and half blind through the alien compound by the towering saurian like elites. Glancing upwards Anderson glimpsed the guard towers stretching high above the canopy roof, each tower furnished with three or four mounted plasma turrets and manned by no less then half a dozen elites. He had no doubt that they could cut the humans down at the first hint of trouble.

"Where are you taking us?" someone shouted.

If the alien's understood the human's language, they did not reply.

After an agonizingly long forced march, the humans were herded into an enclosed building, its walls providing at least a temporary respite from the howling winds.

Inside they were pushed into a long corridor with multiple sloped passages leading off a main thoroughfare. The humans were sectioned off, a platoon of elites forming a solid wedge across the entrance whilst their companions divided the humans into separate clusters. Anderson was grouped with three others, two men and a young woman. Two elites cordoned them off, herding the four humans towards one of the slopping passages as the other prisoners were driven towards their own cells.

Anderson and his fellow humans were pressed tightly together, the young woman sobbing into her hands.

"Why are you doing this to us?" shouted one of the men.

Again the elites did not respond, however one reached out to wall activating a holo-panel with a quick swish of his claw like hand. A door opened at the edge of the passageway and again Anderson and his little group were forced through, their escorts standing shoulder to shoulder behind them.

The chamber they found themselves in was almost pitch black, the only light coming from the slopped chamber they had just been forced through from.

"What are you going to do to us?" the woman screamed.

The elites raised their weapons, the woman stumbling backwards in fright. The two men surged forward but there was no need for the elites to fire, the doors sliding neatly closed before the humans could reach them and taking that last ray of light with them. Bloodied fists pounded against the smooth Covenant alloy which refused to give way to the terrified humans thumping against them.

"Did they just seal us in?" one of the men shouted.

The woman was still sobbing, her cries coming out in wracked tearful bawling.

"Listen to me" Anderson shouted grasping the woman shoulders, "Your Unharmed, I'm going to get us out of here OK. I'm going to get us all out of here."

In the pitch darkness Anderson was aware that the two men had rejoined them, the humans huddling together in abject terror.

"Listen!" the second man hissed.

"What is it" Anderson whispered, squeezing the woman's shoulder.

"Something's moving…"

His voice was cut off with a gurgling cry, hot blood splashing down Anderson neck and face.

A cold metallic claw like iron talons slashed through his prison tunic and found purchase in the soft flesh beneath. Anderson cried out as he felt his skin break, struggling feebly before his unseen assailant hoisted him into the air and threw him across the room like a rag doll.

Anderson struck the ground hard, feeling the bones in his shoulder and cheek shatter as he tumbled head over heals. Somewhere behind him he could hear the woman screaming before the sound of ripping flesh and bone silenced her for ever.

"Let us out" the remaining prisoner screamed kicking and punching at the door, "let us…"

Again the same tearing of flesh, a tragically human scream before the man whose name he did not know was torn from the world for ever.

His attacker was behind him. Anderson scrambled to his hands and knees, knowing the unseen assailant would be on him in…

A great pressure forced itself down on his calf, driving Anderson back to the ground in agony. He screamed as he felt the thin muscles in his lower leg give way and snap as his attacker's weight arched him back upwards, the torment continuing.

The pressure on his ruined leg eased just a fraction before he felt the top half of his tunic ripped from his body. That cold almost metallic like hand curled about his collar bone, soliciting a gurgled cry from Anderson's throat.

"What do you want" he screamed through his bloodied lips.

There was just silence, a low hiss barely audible his assailants only reply. A moment past, a few seconds, Anderson dared believe he might live before he felt that searing pain plunging between his shoulder blades.

It was with a started detachment that Anderson watched a single blade of pulsing energy punch straight up through his chest, and as blood poured from his lips and darkness overcame him, he knew that he was dead.

* * *

**Restricted Communiqué from Colonel Jane Parker to Office of Naval Intelligence Section 1 / 02 / 04 / 2545 (Human Military Calendar)**

UNITED NATIONS SPACE COMMAND TRANSMISSION 117586-11  
ENCRYPTION: AMBER  
PUBLIC KEY: FILE / PARIS-SPARDA-FALCON-THREE /  
FROM: COLONEL JANE PARKER, COMMANDING OFFICER IO RESEARCH BASE GAMMA II / UNSC SERVICE NUMBER: 12852-15965-BQ  
TO: ADMIRAL STANFORTH, UNSC FLEET COMMAND,  
REACH NAVAL HQ'S / UNSC SERVICE NUMBER: 00843-86573-GE  
SUBJECT: COVENANT MILITARY OCCUPATION OF NEW CARTHAGE  
CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED (ONI SECURITY REGULATION)

Michael

I can only pray this reaches you, every other channel I've been slamming my head against for the past three days. You remember New Carthage? Third largest colony in the Alpha Khan cluster we lost in late 44, it wasn't glassed!

We'd suspected the Covenant of having established a long range supply point for their fleet within this sector since the beginning for 45, we found it. Bastard's have occupied New Carthage, probably had boots planet side ever since it fell but our recent probe's uncovered something else, there are still humans on the colony.

The Covenant have occupied every major city on the central plateau, and by every indication they've enslaved the population. We've identified dozens of concentration facilities based specifically around area's rich in mineral resources. There working the enslaved colonists to death in those camps and replenishing their workforce from the cities and countryside.

I know the fleet is stretched thin, and with the recent losses at Miridem and Tokyo III the resources for an offensive at any level are non-existent but we have to do something, there being exterminated Michael. By all records the infrastructure on New Carthage has collapsed, agriculture, medical service and basic water supply has ceased to exist, the Covenant aren't even trying to feed the colonists. New Carthage had a pre-war population of over ninety million; we estimate the death count to be over forty percent, probably higher and the Covenant aren't discriminating; children are being starved to death. As a mother I can't sit on this and do nothing.

It isn't just the impact on moral this will have if and when it gets out. Any action against the Covenant at New Carthage would have real-term strategic benefits. The colony was rich in selenium and technetium among other elements; we believe like us the Covenant use this in the servicing of their FTL drives. We know the Covenant are consolidating their battle groups beyond the frontier, looking for a beachhead before their final drive into the heart of UNSC space. I'm not privy to ONI's logistic engine's but any ensign now knows that push is going to come before the decade is out, at the end of 53 if were lucky. Sabotaging there supply lines at New Carthage would buy us months, even years before that offensive comes.

I'm not asking for an entire task force. A small well armed insertion team and a single prowler could slip onto New Carthage unnoticed and get the job done. I know the Spartan II's are likely requisitioned by the Admiralty all the way to Christmas year 9999 but even an ODST team would be acceptable. It may give those poor souls on the planet some reprieve and ensure the millions already lost haven't died in vain, please think about it.

UNSC Base Gamma, Io

Col Jane Parker


	2. Chapter 1 – Homecoming

**Chapter 1 – Homecoming**

"_The Terrestrial Legionnaire's were a development of the late Covenant military, founded during the most turbulent cycles of the 22__nd__ Age of Doubt._

_The Covenant Empire of this era had been immersed in a number of bloody conflicts across the Orion spiral arm for well over a generation. In the spinward regions of the empire the Covenant fleets were locked into a vicious and costly border war with the expansionist __Pfhor Homogony, the dreaded raider fleets of the infamous Pfhor pirate states pushing ever closer to the Sangheili core worlds. As war raged across the spinward frontier Jiralhanae insurgents from Doisac to the __Talakreche world's had simultaneously plunged the entire anti-spinward corridor into a sector wide rebellion against the ruling High Council._

_The backbone of the Covenant Ground Forces during this period were the Interstellar Field Legions. Comprised of a battle hardened core of state funded professional Sangheili warriors and officers, the Field Legion's were augmented during wartime with auxiliary battalions of indentured warriors from the various Covenant client races. Despite their crack training and advanced technology, it is a simple (and brutal) reality of warfare that in a conflict spanning hundreds of systems and thousands of inhabited worlds, no volunteer army no matter how well disciplined or equipped can simultaneously protect every planet from the marauding armies of foreign states whilst combating the depravations of internal dissidents._

_The Terrestrial Legion's were initially formed as a strategic reserve to support the Field Legions in times of planetary invasion or rebellion. Raised locally from Sangheili colonists, every able bodied male and female between the ages of 10 – 32 cycles was expected to serve for a minimum of five annual cycles. (For those human readers interested in the Covenant Ground Forces of this era, an annual cycle on Sangheilios is equal two standard human years on Earth. A ten year period of service for what effectively amounts to conscripted national service may seem unusually long however a Sangheili's standard life cycle is significantly greater than that of a human, with the average Sangheili living to over a hundred and fifty standard human years of age. The period of military service is therefore proportionate when taken into perspective.)_

_With the tactical flexibility that the Terrestrial Legion's offered, the combined Covenant military was able to regroup its beleaguered fleets and field armies before counterattacking in a series of centrally coordinated offensives. During the final cycles of the 22__nd__ Age of Doubt the Covenant Empire inflicted a number of crushing defeats of the __Pfhor fleets whilst the rebel worlds in the anti-spin corridor were gradually blockaded and stormed one by one. The Covenant Empire had weathered a time of great hardship and loss, and had emerged the stronger because of it._

_The strategic value of the Terrestrial Legionnaire's was not to be overlooked by the Covenant leadership of future generations. Rather than being disbanded, the reserve legions were integrated into the existing Covenant Ground Forces. In the cycles that followed the Terrestrial Legionnaire's would increase their selection pool to the most far flung and isolated of Covenant colony world's and outposts, whilst the standard term of service would be reduced from five to three standard cycles, with conscripts given the option to defer their service by a minimum of three cycles to allow for prior commitments. Most importantly the Terrestrial Legionnaire's would be deployed off world to serve alongside their contemporary kin in the Field Legions. In the coming cycles the Terrestrials would serve with distinction in the bloody Phfor & Xenotine rim wars, the latter Jiralhanae rebellions and off course the religiously motivated crusades against the distant and remote human enclaves on the edge of the spiral rim._

_As an interesting side note, the Terrestrial Legionnaire's were one of the few military units to maintain gender segregation amongst its warriors, with each legionary formation from legionnaire to Field Master (or Mistress) being comprised entirely of either males or females. A contemporary throwback to the ancient Sangheili Space Forces, when a clan's lineage was as deemed as precious a resource as raw materials are to a sovereign state today (and the implications of an unplanned pregnancy legitimate precedent to war), the practice nonetheless created a unique identify amongst the Terrestrial legions._

_In retrospect the original intention of the custom was rendered moot by the necessities of war. In the countless deployment zones, troop transports and active pacifications zones, legions were marshaled with little consideration to clan or gender loyalties, warriors mixed and inevitably unplanned compilations developed. Suffice to say pregnancy control implants soon became mandatory for every single female Terrestrial Legionnaire._

_**Exert from "Covenant Ground Forces of the Ages of **__**Conversion – Reclamation**__**" by Han' **__**Fulsamee (Umbrella Military Publishing circa 2749)"**_

* * *

**Location: Covenant Colonized Sepherian System**

**Date: 02 / 01 / 2545 (Human Military Calendar)**

**90 Days prior to events of Prologue**

The Covenant fleet breached slip-space on the very edge of the Sepherian system, three dozen lances of arching light piecing the dark void of space. Their rapid insertion trajectories curved them around the expansive debris fields that dotted the outer planets several thousands kilometre's anti-spinward from the system's capital world, Sepheria Luminare.

CCS-class battle cruisers, auxiliary carriers, escort destroyers and twice as many support ships. From their entry point the fleet was shielded by the planets sole gas giant and largest planetary body, a classic attack strategy. Aboard his antique yet still fully function Command Carrier, the Fleet Master split his forces, the sleek tear dropped vessel's skimming Koreshla's atmosphere like the ancient whales of Sangheilios's oceans of times past.

In the inner system, the capital world's automated defences were already coming to bear on the interloper's fleet, as drifting plasma mines and defensive weapon platforms in high orbit activated their targeting systems. Colossal plasma cannons and mounted energy projectors built into the planet's orbital rings and artificial satellites swiftly targeted the approaching vessels as every single warship of the Covenant Armada on patrol in the system broke from their assigned routes to intercept the invaders. Over four hundred and fifty capital ships were pulled back to defend what many considered to be the most vital colony world in the Covenant's expansive empire.

Aboard the interloper's flagship, with a throaty chuckle and more than a few panicked glances from his underling's the Fleet Master conceded the old game to the system's masters. Passing a wiry claw like hand over his personal command pedestal the Sangheili warrior transmitted the encryption codes known to only a handful within the Covenant's ruling hierarchy, moments before honour, regulation and tradition would seen his fleet obliterated. In a fraction of a second the encryption codes were received, authenticated and verified. Sepheria Luminare extensive defences deactivated one by one as the approaching ships were re-classified from unknown contacts to allied ships of the Covenant Armada.

The Fleet Master was an aged specimen. He had served during the Age of Doubt, the pacification wars of the Jiralhanae and the early cycles of the Covenant Empire's crusades against the blasphemous humans. Relegated to a ceremonial role, he did so immensely enjoy keeping the system's commander's on their hooves.

* * *

The Sangheili passengers flocked into the expansive observation deck of the cruiser _Divine Judgement _in their hundreds as the fleet cleared the upper atmosphere of the bloated gas giant, coming into clear view of the shining sphere that was Sepheria Luminare.

Gathered amongst her sister legionnaire's Suka' Nakitee felt a chocking flood of emotions swelling inside of her. Joy, awe and perhaps even a tinge of fear, a sensation felt no doubt by many of her kin. Sepheria Luminare was the birth world of many aboard that observation deck, and none had seen it in over three full cycles.

As the fleet pushed forward into the inner system, Sepheria Luminare solidified into a more recognizable planetoid. Under the crystal white atmosphere Nakitee could pick out vast continents and polar ice caps separated by an interwoven seabed of shimmering aqua oceans. It was every bit the gleaming jewel Nakitee had remembered during the last few cycles she had spent cooped up inside her shielded barracks, or patrolling the swamp infested borderlands between the Jiralhanae hunting tribes of the scattered Talakreche worlds.

A sharp nudge beneath her ribs drew Nakitee's attention back to the observation deck where another Sangheili female of slightly shorter build and structure had emerged from the tight press to stand beside her. Like Nakitee the Sangheili wore simple robes over her black military bodyglove and combat harness. Her skin bore a touch deeper shade then many aboard the ship, not the colour of someone born under Sepheria Luminare's star but that of a warmer world.

"So this is the shining beacon of the Covenant Empire" Falshree mused folding her arms in mock theatrics, "The first colony, gateway to the spinward worlds, mirror to the Holy City…"

"Your point is taken Zera" Nakitee countered waving her friend to silence, "Now swallow it before someone plasma weld's your mandibles shut."

Zera' Falshree grinned widely at her companions retort, cocking her head as she glanced towards the quickly expanding colony world.

"For all the talk sister" Falshree persisted, "For all the weeping females that first tour amongst the Jiralhanae's equatorial cities, I expected something, more."

"To you perhaps sister" Nakitee replied, "My family is down there. A home I have not seen for over three cycles. I've prayed many nights that I would make it home alive to see this world."

"And whilst you were praying for that" Falshree muttered, pretending to stifle a cough in her throat, "I was preying for something very different, and it was neither family nor home. Though he did have two legs and the most pleas…"

Nakitee's claw whipped out towards her friends head, Falshree chuckling as she ducked under the blow. It was the same old Falshree she had come to treasure almost as much as a blood kin these last three cycles. The observation deck was filled with Sangheili from her lance and the greater cohort. Every single one of them alive today she knew by name and had come to love them all as her sisters, as well as those who had not returned.

To her immediate right was a slim Sangheili named Zakamee. The unit's medical adjutant was watching the passing orbital traffic, her forearms resting on the observation decks protective rail. The slightly older female was known to be somewhat anxious at the best of times, always fretful about the hatchling she had birthed just before she had shipped out to begin her mandatory term of service.

A few paces away and towering above her sister legionnaire's stood Tasmansee, the lance's heavy weapons specialist. It was well known and frequently contested that she was the physically strongest warrior in the cohort. By her side was a lithe Sangheili named Ahrmonree, one of the lance's four designated sharp shooters and reputably Tasmansee's lover. The maverick female was known to instantly modify any weapons she got her claws on, religious regulations be damned.

Regrettably Elar' Putamee, their lance's commander and a seasoned warrior was laid out in the cruiser's infirmary, apparently suffering from a rare and quite aggressive strain of Talakreche flu. The ship's Healer's had told them that she would be laid low for a full quarter of a cycle, but that she should make a full recovery in time.

Sepheria Luminare was rapidly growing in size before them. Beyond the energy shielded viewing port Nakitee could begin to pick out the individual landmasses from between the oceans. Her home was on the peripheral edge of the globe. Sunrise would be soon and her family would awake if they had not already risen.

Sepheria Luminare was not any mere colony world in the Covenant's vast dominion of space. Being one of the first extra-solar colonies of the pre-covenant Sangheili Empire many millennia ago, it had become a triumphant symbol of her people's mastery of the stars, their first mark in an interstellar civilisation that would endure for millennia. Subsequent generations of space travel had forged the resource rich system into a focal point for every major trade route and supply line that wound their way through the ever expanding Covenant Empire. Today the system saw more inter-system travel then some of the homeworld's.

As the cruiser's approach vector brought them closer and closer to Luminare's orbit, Nakitee could make out the expansive network of spaceports, dry-docks and defence satellites that ringed the entire world in two halo like superstructures, one stretching over the equator and the other over the polar ice caps. Hundreds of Covenant warships from small CPV-class destroyers and corvettes to immense assault carriers were locked into the colossal dry docks built into the rings. Nakitee knew from her father's correspondence that the dry-docks were in continuous use all cycle as task forces arrived from the front lines, rearmed and departed in the ongoing wars against the humans.

"Your father's ship" Falshree asked, "Do you know which one it is?"

"No" Nakitee shook her head, "He took command of a Reverent-class heavy cruiser last cycle. It is one of a new classification, only forty have so far been constructed." She reached out and pointed towards one of the dry docks at the far side of the planet, "That could be it but I can't be sure from this distance."

An alert sounded throughout the ship cutting the two Sangheili off from their conversation. Nakitee recognized it as the warning given when the ship was on its final approach vector. Steadily and without rush the Sangheili began to vacate the observation deck.

Nakitee and Falshree collected their meagre possessions from their hold. Three full cycles of occupation duty on a smattering of backwater Jiralhanae colonies garnered few souvenirs. Saying a customary goodbye to the ship they departed to the cruiser's expansive hanger bays. Already a small but significant number of Sangheili were waiting there, vacuum sealed duffel bags slung over their shoulders. Clearly they were not the only ones who wanted to get off the ship fast.

Kig-yar in heavy radiation suits guided the females to Shadow-class dropship's waiting on the hanger deck to transport them to the surface. Nakitee and Falshree sat together towards the rear of the drop-ship's starboard fin.

"Ah, my favorite part" Falshree said as she strapped herself in.

"Gods" Nakitee muttered, "I hate space travel."

A moment later the drop-ship launched, and Nakitee could swear she felt her stomach trying to force its way up into her throat.

* * *

The northern continental spaceport was a bustling hive of activity as ships from every corner of the Covenant Empire docked, offloaded their cargo, refuelled and launched in an endless cycle of sunrise and sunset. Hundreds of thousands of Covenant citizens passed through the vast spaceport everyday, and below the crowded upper levels a vast army of Yanme'e and Huragok engineers toiled to keep the miniature city's four plasma reactors running.

Suka' Nakitee's Spirit drop-ship touched down on the southern tip of one of the spaceports eight major landing pads along with four other low atmospheric transports. The females filed off in practiced military efficiency, Unggoy workers guiding them down the ramps that ringed the expansive landing pads.

It was for the first time in over three cycles that Nakitee felt the humid air brush against her skin whilst powerful rays from Sepheria's burning sun singed her brow and gently warmed the back of her neck. Taking a deep breath, Nakitee closed her eyes and allowed the air to fill her lungs. It was not the choking spores of some Forerunner forsaken swamp world or the stuffy recycled air of a starship but the clean familiar air of her birth world.

The female legionnaire's preceded through the arrival halls where they mixed with the vast crowds of new arrivals which were descending through the vast superstructure of the spaceport. Nakitee saw Sangheili merchants and bureaucrats, scribes and warriors on leave. Kig-yar traders were also amongst them and a small number of Jiralhanae could be seen working their way through the winding passages and bays which ran the length of the spaceport, like the arterial arteries of some great leviathan from the ocean.

Just outside of central transport hub Falshree folded her claw like hand around Nakitee's arm and pulled her to one side.

"This is where I must leave you" Falshree said, her dark eyes gleaming in the luminous lighting of the walls.

"Sister, you know you are always welcome in my family's estate" Nakitee replied, "Why not come and stay with us for just a few rotations."

"You know that I can take care of myself Nakitee", Falshree grinned, "We will stay in touch. You have my comm.'s frequency, do you not?"

With a nod of her head Nakitee flicked her wrist, a small holo-unit built into her armguard expanded into a holographic dome above her palm. Nakitee navigated the holo-interface, checking that her friends contact frequency was loaded and saved before dismissing the holo-dome with another flick of her wrist.

The two sister legionnaire's lent into each other, clasping arms beneath their cloaks. Clicking her mandibles Falshree brushed past her friend and made her way towards on of the waiting grav transports.

"Contact me come sunrise" Nakitee called "We will arrange a time and place to meet."

"Better make that two sunrises" Falshree called back as she stepped onto the grav craft, "And bring the strongest flask of caffeine money can buy. My head will need the clarity after the night that I have planned."

Nakitee shook her head, "Just stay safe Falshree" she laughed, "Do not do anything foolish."

"And where would be the fun in that?"

After watching Falshree's own transport glide silently away on a single luminous grav line, Nakitee boarded her own waiting transport. Making her way down the steps that descended the spaceport's upper platforms and transport hubs she was greeted by a latticework of lush expansive gardens that ringed the outskirts of the spaceport's gates. The gardens were thronged with hundreds, perhaps thousands of Sangheili and attendant Unggoy servants. She scanned the sea of faces as she reached the base of the steps. It had been so very long.

She never saw the two younglings until they were almost under her hooves, bursting out from between the adult Sangheili before her. The children bounded into her legs with such force that Nakitee was almost knocked backwards. Biting down a curse at the back of her throat Nakitee reached down clasping each hatchling by the scruff of their necks and none to gently hoisting them from her legs.

"What in the Gods" she breathed, "What are you two…"

She suddenly stopped, her eyes narrowing as she looked the two younglings over. Three cycles was a long time indeed. The two hatchlings had been much smaller when she had seen them last newly emerged from their eggs, blind and deaf in her parent's birth crèche.

Kneeling down Nakitee hooked a powerful arm under each youngling and lifted them into the air. Her siblings giggled as she embraced them in a crushing bear hug.

"How you two have grown" Nakitee said as she deposited them both back to the ground.

The emergence of two other Sangheili from the pressing crowd drew Nakitee's attention from her siblings. One of them, a towering male was clad in the golden armour of a Ship Master, his imposing height and muscular build ensured the bunched crowd maintained a respectful distance. The second Sangheili was a female, a lither figure then her mate and clad in a simple yet expensively embroiled cloak and hood.

"My daughter" the Ship Master said, reaching towards Nakitee and clasping her in his huge arms, "By the Forerunners look at you! My child has become a full grown Sangheili of beauty and strength."

"Father" Nakitee replied, leaning into the Sangheili's chest, a chest she had not huddled into for over three long cycles. The armour had been silver then, Varo' Nakitee Commander but not the master of the ship he now captained.

Nakitee's mother approached, soothing the chuckling hatchlings with a claw on each of their shoulders. As her father released her from his chest, she turned towards the Sangheili that had hatched her.

"Suka" Essa' Nakitee said as she reached forward and hooked Nakitee's chin in her slender claws, "Oh how you have grown. You were but a child when you left us, and now you return not just an adult but a warrior, confident and disciplined."

Nakitee smiled, her mandibles parting in a gesture of affection. She had not yet communicated to her parents her desire to leave the military, but saw the unsaid understanding in her father's eyes. He had rarely spoken of his campaigns against the humans, but she knew he had seen things, committed acts he would never wish his children to have to witness for themselves.

Her parents led her to a private transport, a civilian model Spectre which was parked in one of the spaceports depots. Her sibling's played a game in the rear most seats concerning who could swipe hardest and who could duck their head out of the way of their brother's oncoming claws the fastest in an alternating pattern of giggles and yelps. The adults talked all the way back to the Nakitee family estate.

* * *

Varo' Nakitee met his old friend and colleague at the Temple of Sanctus in the late evening, just as Luminare's bloated sun was settling in the east far behind the great mountain chains. The Vestal Shrine was on the outskirts of the capital city's southern quarter nestled between the sloping marble avenues of the administrative district and the expansive fields of the continental plains.

Commander Taia' Korequee was knelt in silent prayer before the temple's central alter, his claw like hands folded across his chest and his head bowed humbly inside the sanctum's walls.

Varo paused at the edge of the temple, taking a moment to admire the age old structure. It was not among the grandest of temples on Sepheria Luminare's soil. The rich Sangheili colony world was hardly short of majestic and elaborate shrine's as wealthy pilgrims provided a large proportion of the planet's annual income. For those who attended its holy ground's that evening, the temple was a place of quite refuge and sanctuary in an otherwise cruel and chaotic universe.

Korequee breathed in deeply, his conjoined lung expanding under his rib cage as he opened his eyes, his body still.

"How long has it been Nakitee" he asked without turning around "three cycles? And when?"

"Our engagement above their agricultural world" Varo replied with a click of his lower mandibles, "What did the humans call it?" he asked rhetorically, titling his head towards the sky.

"Kholo" Korequee replied in deeply accented Sangheili. Slowly the Special Operation's Commander rose to his full height and stretched his shoulders before clasping his hands behind his back. He had not yet turned from the alter.

"I hope you have not been waiting their long Ship Master."

Varo shook his head in amusement, "It is impolite to disturb the contemplation of another in a place of worship."

"Utter drivel" Korequee retorted throatily, "Prolonged exposure to my rhetoric already drives a good portion of our cadet's to near suicide each cycle. What I am doing here to our Lord's must amount to the greatest sacrilege of all my brother."

Varo stared at Korequee, his mandibles clenching tightly. What his old friend had just said was borderline heresy, but he could not hold it in any longer.

Varo sniggered, clasping a clawed hand over his mouth as he tried to stifle further laughter, tried and failed. Korequee chuckled, his deep throaty chortle wringed throughout the Temple preceding the rumbling laughter of the two warriors which drew sharp glares from the other worshipers there that evening.

They speedily vacated the Temple of Sanctus in due haste, finding a quite tavern which overlooked the sprawling plains on the edge of the city. Varo hailed the attending Unggoy waiter and ordered two thick sacra ale's, tipping the creature two antiquated metal coins. The two Sangheili found seats and a table on the very edge of the street where they caught the most of the sun, the little Unggoy servant returning with their drinks a moment later.

"A fine cruiser" Korequee commented as he picked up his flagon of ale, "the Eternal Luminance."

Varo paused, cocking his head towards the Commander, "My promotion has not yet been made official. How in the Heaven's did you know?"

"I have my sources Nakitee. And while I am not naming any names, your tactical officer becomes quite talkative after a few dozens drinks."

Varo clicked his lower mandibles, "I'll discuss Valkuriee's liberal interpretation of confidentially with him upon my return, but enough of business. I have cause for celebration this sunrise."

"Your daughter" Korequee said, clicking his clawed fingers, "Suka?"

Varo nodded as he took a sip of his ale, "She returned early this morning. I have not left the family estate all day."

"How many cycles is she now, twelve?"

"Thirteen"

"Your bond mate must be glad she has returned" Korequee said, "If there is certainly one thing the Jiralhanae are worse at then being allies, it's subjects."

"I think I preferred them as enemies" Varo replied, "The Jiralhanae are now free to carry weapons in their own cities, and ever since the amalgamation our soldiers cannot fire without provocation, true provocation I mean."

"You mean an obstinate glare is no longer justification for a beating" Korequee asked rhetorically, "May just happen that the hairy primate is related to the local tribal Chieftain."

"Their leaders plead to the High Council of their insecurity" Varo hissed, "They beg us to support their claims then tie the hands of our warriors before they have even set hooves upon the Jiralhanae's infernal worlds. It put's our young at risk."

Shrugging his shoulders Korequee drained the last of his flagon in one long mouthful before rising to his hooves and stretching his neck, "Has your daughter decided what to do now she has returned to your estate?"

"Her mandatory term of service is now complete" Varo replied, returning his now empty flagon to the table, "She was never keen on pursuing a military career past her compulsory service. Before she left for the Talakreche world's the Ministry of Fortitude had already offered her a position within the Central Archives and Account's."

"A respectable position" Korequee agreed, "Close to the capital and well paid." He scratched at his lower mandibles, staring at the far mountain ranges to the west, "I still remember our own service, the Y'Deio system."

"Blasted Kig-yar and their infernal satellite colonies" Varo hissed as he rose from his seat, "Couldn't have colonized actual planets like a normal race."

"Then straight after our mandatory service was complete, we were thrust into those bloody skirmishes with the Pfhor in the Qual'tek systems" Korequee continued, turning towards Varo and folding his arms, "phony war my hind. We lost almost a hundred ships. The Fleet of Valiant Prudence was mauled to the bone, whilst the Pfhor had landed almost twenty legions planetside before we cut them off from their supply lines."

Varo shook his head at the thought, "I remember. God's if the _Seeker of Truth_ hadn't made that last assault run against their battleships, their storm troops could have overrun us. They nearly did as it was. It did seem the Hierarchs and the High Council were out to kill us that cycle."

"And now we find ourselves immersed in yet another war" Korequee said as he leant back against the taverns outer wall, "Be thankful your daughter's service is finally at an end."

"The Humans" Varo snorted with a derisive shake of his head, "You cannot compare our campaign's against the infidel's to the slaughter and raiding our people suffered at the hands of the Pfhor. The humans cannot threaten our worlds and we continue sweep aside their defenses cycle after cycle, scattering their fleets wherever they mass. They cannot stand before us."

"In space your argument holds true" Korequee conceded, "yet it is a different story entirely planet side. Our clashes with the Pfhor, even our wars against Jiralhanae insurrectionists had rules and boundaries, dictated by our simple desire for conquest. Our crusade against the humans allows for no such rules, our only objective is their complete extermination, and they know this. Eradication impels an enemy to fight harder then any other and can make the most inferior of races dangerous beyond all measure."

"Our crusade with there kind is nearly ended" Varo pressed, "Every Ship Master anti-spinward of Sangheilios knows this. We press closer and closer to their home systems with each passing cycle, confining them to ever tightening pocket. Soon we will be able to draw the bulk of their ships into a single decisive engagement and eradicate their fleet once and for all."

"I would not be so eager to engage them in a mainline battle" Korequee countered waiving a clawed forefinger in front of his friend, "even with their crude weaponry and propulsion technologies, they have shown a tenacity that verges on suicidal genius at times. They inflicted crippling losses on our forces at Minoris and Miridem even if we were able to glass their worlds, and their Fleet Commander's entrapment of our ships at Psi Serpentis was nothing short of sheer tactical brilliance."

"Fleet Master Zakukree was beyond incompetent" Varo growled, "I understand that his two daughters have been forbidden from breeding and had he survived his defeat the High Council would have strung him up by his entrails. It matters little, the humans infernal Admiral, this Cole perished in the battle. Wattinree will ensure Psi Serpentis isn't repeated."

"He would be best not to" Korequee said, "We can ill afford the loss of so many trained warriors again. It is exactly this kind of kind of incident that would make your daughters military record so appetising to the Ministry of Resources."

"Conscription?" Varo paused before shaking his head, "They wouldn't dare. Her generation have served their three cycles in armour, and they would have to come through me first. Let them draw their resources from the next pool of draftees, we are hardly short of young warriors."

Korequee glanced back towards the distant mountains, letting the evening sun gently bake the skin on his face, "How long are you back for?"

"I'm not sure. Half the fleet of Particular Justice is docked in high orbit along with the vessels of Vigilance, Prudence and a dozen others. I'm on leave until further notice."

"Interesting" Korequee mused, massaging his lower mandibles with a knuckle, "Over forty Special Operation Brigades have been recalled so far, thousands of warriors are returning daily. The Academy is literally awash with returned warriors cooling their hooves. I've already heard every brewery from here to the southern polar caps has been emptied. Not even the merchants new so many were returning."

"Then you believe the High Council is preparing for a major offensive?"

Korequee didn't respond right away, pondering his friends words, "Or at least a significant redeployment of our available assets to pre-empt a multiple system advance. But the rearming of our fleet alone will keep us busy until the end of the cycle and I would wager the humans still have a sizable fleet between us and their homeworld, wherever in this spiral arm that may be."

"We can wait" Varo decided, "After all. Time is our ally and our enemy's adversary. Even if it takes another ten cycles we will see the beginning of the Great Journey within our lifetimes, within my children's lifetimes."

Korequee turned back towards him, his mandibles clenching tightly and his eyes sober. All at once Varo knew the memory he had disturbed, the one his friend had tried so hard to suppress.

"I still remember that day in the hatchery" Korequee said, "Orsi delivering the hatchling, passing her to Essa…"

Korequee faltered, his claws curling around the empty flagon in his hand.

"She loved you Taia" Varo said, clasping his hand over Korequee shoulder guard, "With all her heart. Had it not been for your partner, my own child, possibly even Essa may not be here now. I owe your family a debt that I can never repay."

"Her passing was the hardest cycle of my life" Korequee said, "But it was also the same day that your daughter was born Nakitee. Orsi loved your family. She'd have wanted this day to be one of happiness, for both of us."

* * *

The Sangheili Special Operation's Group possessed a bond stronger then blood.

They were the best of all arms of the combined Covenant military. They were experienced, they were battle hardened and they drilled until they psychically bled. As a result their pay was high, their unit's small and their deployments long.

Seldom did a cohort much less an entire brigade receive indefinite leave on colony world as affluent and prosperous as Sepheria Luminare. In was a time honoured tradition that when the Forerunners graced the warriors of the vaunted Special Operation's Group with such a bounty, they would drink their host city dry, or be rushed the nearest field hospital trying.

Juha' Relusee estimated he was about half way there. Then he recalled he was extremely drunk, and really shouldn't be listening to himself.

His immediate fourunit milled around the table in various states of consciousness. Across the table Zel' Tasolmee, a thickly set bullish warrior grappled with a returning terrestrial legionnaire by the name of Zera' Falshree. The two were teetering on the edge of the same chair and had not parted mandibles for the past few units. Relusee knew Tasolmee was not perfect in abiding by the Covenant's traditionally stringent ethics on mating, but in all likelihood the female had gone longer without seeing a male of her own species then vise versa.

Beside him Kalu' Texlusee, a female of patrician beauty and the reflexes of a blood wolf sat poised with her back to the wall and her eyes closed. Despite the aristocratic Sangheili's cold exterior and unsettling demeanour, the entire unit knew the female could place a carbine round between the eyes of a swamp rodent from a thousand meters, even when her head was clouded by the haze of a dozen shots of spirited alcohol.

Relusee glanced back towards the open bar, searching for the newest member of their fourunit. The club was full to bursting point with the heave of towering Sangheili warriors on leave drinking and laughing, and even a handful Jiralhanae milled in small groups. A smattering of panicked Unggoy servants scrambled between the mass of warriors trying desperately to deliver their trays of drinks and avoid the heavy hooves of the drunken Sangheili. Relusee found Varu' Kilshree not far from their table, in a heated argument with a pillar.

Relusee shook his head, looking again. He had not been mistaken. The headstrong male was standing, flagon in hand screaming bloody obscenities at a plassteel support pillar, another Sangheili beside him agreeing with every insult he hurtled.

The tavern was not particularly special. Adequate liquor, if not overpriced. Expedient service, if not always accurate yet with hundreds of thousands of warriors returning to Sepheria Luminare, such drinking holes were in short supply. Outside the street teemed with dozens more Sangheili and more then a few Jiralhanae. A large number of bouncers, thickly set former military Sangheili clad in heavy grey armour and wielding shock mauls patrolled the street breaking up clashes between crowds of rowdy off-duty soldiers.

A sequenced chime drew Relusee's attention down to the holo-unit built into his wrist gauntlet. With a flick of his claw like hand a blue hollow bubble expanded across his grey palm. With a groan he recognized the order that had been transmitted to him, a primary level report order. He had only received such an order once, shortly after the disastrous battle of Psi Serpentis and with new clarity he realized what it meant. Return to your marshal point with immediate effect no matter your rank, location or condition. Failure to report will result in the severest of punishments.

Looking up, Relusee realized he was not the only one to have received the message. Tasolmee, Texlusee, Kilshree and even Falshree were each looking at their own wrist mounted holographic interfaces, their faces suddenly sober. Not just them, Relusee realized. The tavern had fallen silent, every Sangheili looking into the blue holographic bubble across their hand. Outside dozens of glowing blue globes illuminated the night.

Word spread like wildfire across the capital. The returning Covenant legions were marching to war.

* * *

Suka' Nakitee awoke sometime deep into the night, an icy knot she had not felt since she was among the Talakreche worlds twisting painfully at her insides.

She fumbled in the darkness as her eyes adjusted to the Sepherian midnight, a searing pain spreading across her temples. Discarding the soft quilted covers Nakitee swung her legs over the edge of the bed, kneeled forward and massaged her brow. Her claws came away coated in sweat.

Something was terribly wrong. She could feel it all the way down to her bones.

Nakitee gave herself a precious few moments to compose herself, taking slow deep breaths to circulate her blood flow to every corner of her body. Gradually her head stopped spinning and the pain receded, her vision returning. Rising from her bed she strolled across her room, dispatching the holo-blind with a gentle wave of her hand. Luminare's sole moon glistened like a golden sphere high above the mainland, its gentle amber glow illuminating the capital city in place of its daily counterpart. From her family's estate Nakitee could make out the Leymor lake at the edge of the city's boundaries, the water rippling in the calm night breeze.

Standing by the window, the moon's ochre hue illuminating her skin brought another realization to the returned warrior, she was stark naked.

On the Talakreche world's she had always slept in her bodyglove, if not in her full armour during the weeks the locals were feeling that extra tad bit tenacious. Had she really been that tired the night before?

She had not felt that safe in cycles.

Wrapping herself in a simple gown of silk Nakitee made her way towards the landing, gently easing her doorway open. The corridors were shrouded in darkness that night, the automated holo-blinds allowing only the slimmest rays of moonlight to penetrate the gloom that enveloped the Nakitee household.

Suka checked on her younger siblings first, feeling with her hand for the door in the darkness. The two younglings were sound asleep, curled beneath their blankets in their joined room. An aged Unggoy housemaid was coiled on the chair in the far corner of the room, slumbering in the servant races classic sleeping position.

Ensuring the door was closed tightly behind her Nakitee made her way downstairs, descending the winding staircase that twisted its way up the spine of the old manor house. She could hear a lower murmur coming from the ground floor, the deep clipped voices of two adult Sangheili. She paused on the lower landing which overlooked the kitchen, straining to make out the words.

"_Why was it not glassed!" _she heard her mother scream.

She could hear her father, his voice hushed as he tried to keep their argument confined to the lower floor. Whatever it was he said, it seemed to do little to calm Nakitee's mother down.

"_She's served her three cycles. The council could never enforce this order!"_

Nakitee descended the final flight of steps, straining to hear what her father was saying. Something about mineral deposits, 'strategic point' she heard Varo mention.

Her mother hissed, bringing her voice down as she tried to exercise some control lest she wake the entire household. She said something about 'Unggoy workers', 'indentured labour.'

Walking across the hallway Nakitee pressed her palm to the activation crystal, the arched doorway beside her sliding silently open and illuminating the lower hallway with the kitchens artificial lighting.

"Humans should be…" her mothers words evaporated in her throat as her daughter entered the room, both parents twisting to face their first born child.

"Suka" her father said, "You're awake."

"What has happened?" she asked.

Her father parted his mandibles to speak but paused, unable to summon the words. Nakitee turned towards her mother, the family matriarch averting her eyes from her daughter, her grey claws curling around a freshly replicated parchment of transcript.

"What are you holding?"

"It's nothing" Essa lied.

"Mother?"

"You must show her Essa" Varo said.

"No!"

"Essa!" Varo barked.

With a vehement hiss Essa slapped the parchment down on the kitchen table, scowling at Varo as she did so, her eyes screaming bloody murder.

Nakitee reached forward and took the parchment from the table, the scroll emitting a soft crackle of energy as her claws creased the thin plasma field which enveloped the holo-glyph's. She scanned the document, taking note of the official emblem of the Ministry of Resource. Much of the text was regular regurgitated bureaucracy. A small part detailed the strategic necessity of access to raw materials in relation to internal security, the Covenant's various obligations to the defence of its members and allies, the untrustworthiness of their neighbouring states, and off course the ongoing crusade against the human infidels. Nakitee quickly found the origin of her parent's distress, her mandibles parting as she read the words.

_First Daughter of House Nakitee_

_By order of the Ministry of Resource, you have been hereby selected for your previous combat experience by the Fleet of Furious Redemption._

Nakitee scanned through the rest of the document, the words burning against the inside of her skull.

_Interplanetary Security Force_

_Occupation and Administrative Zone's_

_Slave Labour_

_Humans_

_Deployment imminent. Coordinates for embarkation will follow; immediate haste must be made to such provided coordinates, no exceptions. Any violation of these orders will be punishable by death._

_By order of the Prophet of Penance._

Nakitee read through the parchment a second time, and then a third time just to be certain that her eyes were not deceiving her. All was once again quite in the Sangheili household, for one brief moment.

"It's unprecedented" Essa breathed. Suka could see blood dripping from her curled fists where her mother sharp claws her were digging into her palms.

She was truly enraged.

"You don't have to go Suka."

"Essa" her father cautioned.

"She doesn't" the Sangheili woman almost screamed, "We have money and influence. What good is such wealth if you cannot use it. Whatever they want we will give it!"

Nakitee looked towards her father. He blanched, what they were discussing was illegal, the repercussions severe.

"It could be done" he replied solemnly "We have friends within the High Command, but if we are to do this I must act now."

Nakitee paused, considering the question for just one moment. That was all it took to make up her mind, "No!"

"Suka!" her mother hissed.

"My life is no more precious then any others" she replied firmly, "and I will not bring shame to your name by using its association to shirk my duty whilst others risk their lives."

"You have served your time child" Essa pleaded, "You have done no less than the empire asked of myself and your father in our youth."

"There will be others Suka" Varo said, "Without shame they will use their family's power and influence to avoid this order."

"That is their misdeed father" Nakitee replied "and it would not alleviate my own were I to follow suit. For every son or daughter to evade this order there will be many more who cannot or will not. I will not discuss this notion any further."

Her father paused, exhaling deeply, something that may well have passed for admiration crossing his face. Her mother looked like she was going to continue the argument but Suka stalled her by raising her spread hand.

"The subsequent deployment orders could come through at any moment. I must get ready to leave, possibly at first light."

She turned on her heel, walking towards the kitchen door.

"Where are you going?" her mother asked.

"To say goodbye to my brothers. I don't know when I may see them again."


	3. Chapter 2 – Subjugation

**Chapter 2 – Subjugation**

_**- New Carthagian Instrument of Surrender – 03 / 10 / 2544**_

_We, the provisional civilian government of New Carthage, do hereby accept the terms of surrender set forth in the declaration issued by the Master's of the Fleet of Furious Redemption, hereafter also referred to as the Covenant Interstellar Navy._

_We do hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Covenant Interstellar Navy of the Carthaginian Central Command Headquarters and all human armed forces under the Command of the Carthaginian Colonial Government._

_All human forces wherever situated upon New Carthage are with immediate effect to cease any and all hostilities with Covenant ground forces, to preserve from damage all vehicles, spacecraft, military and civil property and to comply with all requests and requirements imposed by the Master's of the Covenant Interstellar Navy._

_We do hereby command all officers of the colonial militia regiment's and Carthaginian Conststabulary precinct's to order those under their command to lay down their weapons and munitions. All officer's still subordinate to the United Nation Space Command Defence Force are to seek immediate transport off world. If immediate extraction is not possible they are to place themselves under the jurisdiction of the closest officer of the Carthaginian Conststabulary._

_We do hereby command all civilian authorities across New Carthage and all humans in general to carry out the provisions of this deceleration in good faith, and to obey any orders or directives which may be required by the representatives of the Master's of the Fleet of Furious Redemption or by any other designated representative of the Covenant Interstellar Navy for the purpose of giving effect to this declaration._

_The authority of the Emergency Senate of New Carthage shall be subject to the Master of the Fleet of Furious Redemption who will take such steps as he deems necessary to effectuate these terms of surrender._

_Signed at Novago Central Hub Station on the third day of October, 2544_

**_Signatories_**

**_Margo Sebastian_**

_- Colonial Governor of New Carthage (Died in incarceration at Facility 009 on the fifteenth day of October 2544.)_

**_Orsa' Talsharnee_**

_- Fleet Master of the Fleet of Furious Redemption, acting General-Governor of New Carthage circa third day of October 2544._

* * *

**Location: Covenant Occupied Human Colony World New Carthage**

**Date: 04 / 02 / 2545 (Human Military Calendar)**

**33 Days after the events of Chapter 1**

**57 Days prior to events of Prologue**

"Lazarus cell is gone Sir."

All Major Richard Connor craved in this world at that moment was just a single night on undisturbed sleep.

What he had was a horrific nightmare.

Scratch that, what he had was a horrific nightmare from which he was unable to wake. He and every other single human currently stranded on New Carthage.

The five human resistance officers were crammed into a stuffy foreman's office, deep beneath the hollow shell of a former disused chemical enrichment facility just outside the capital city. He had been assured that the assortment of various chemical compounds still lingering among the ruins of the plant would shield the humans from any orbital scans from the Covenant fleet in orbit.

Connor silently regarded the sprawling map of the planetary capital city of Novago which was spread on across table before them, his forefinger and thumb curled around the edge of his chin.

"Survivors?" he finally asked.

Lieutenant Chaucer, a veteran marine officer and Connor's second in command shook her head, chewing her lower lip. Somewhere at the back of Connor's mind twenty-seven nameless human resistance fighters were scratched into a seemingly endless list of names.

"Poor bastards never stood a chance" a meaty Carthaginian named Barker growled. He was a shaven headed brute of a man and a former riot officer of the now defunct Carthaginian Conststabulary.

"It was an orbital strike" Chaucer continued, "High yield pulse lasers, deadly accurate. Lazarus's hideout was based somewhere around the old rail depot north of the city. Everyone underground would have been dead before they even knew what was happening."

"What about the other cells in that area?" Connor asked sombrely.

"Covenant troops surrounded the town of Utica last night" replied Martinez, a short stocky army ranger and their chief pathfinder, "My scouts reported hundred of ground troops, supported by artillery and air support. The Covenant didn't discriminate between the resistance fighters and civilians during the attack. The entire population of the town was exterminated."

"We had reports of another mass deployment of Covenant troop's three clicks south of the old space port" Barker added, "Looks like they hit what was left of Bravo Company's third platoon that was hold up in the woodlands. Brute patrols are crawling all over that area now."

"What are the comm.'s lines saying?" Connor asked as he turned towards Anderson, his communication officer and the only member of the cell entrusted with the precious communication frequencies of the other human resistance cells spread across the planet.

Anderson shook his head, "Everyone's quite Sir, probably terrified that the Covenant may have cracked our communication network again. I'm listening for any indications of survivors but the moment we start broadcasting, Sir if the Covenant are listening…"

"Understood" Connor replied, running his hands over his closely cropped hair and smoothing his fingers down towards the base of his skull. Three resistance cells and what was left of Bravo Company, over a hundred and fifty men and women dead. And how many civilians had been inside Utica when the Covenant ground it to dust? Hundreds surely, perhaps even a couple of thousand.

"What does it look like inside the capital?"

Chaucer reached down towards the map, tapping her gloved fingertip at the centre of the city, "The Covenant have finished construction of their Forward Operating Base. They flattened most of Novago's downtown district into the ground to make way for it. We have confirmed reports of no less then thirty seven mobile bunkers spread across the FOB's perimeter. Each one is capped with a heavy plasma cannon and ringed with anti air batteries. The whole network is linked with energy barriers that surround the base.

"What do we know about the enemy's numbers?"

"Thousands" Chaucer replied stone faced, "An area the size of downtown could easily hold an entire UNSC armoured division, even a full corp.'s at a pinch."

"Tanks" Barker added solemnly, "Artillery, supply's depots, refuelling pads for gunships. Bastards probably have a fucking cinema in there too."

_And what have I got_ Barker thought sourly, _The scattered remnants of two marine platoons. A few constable's from a defunct planetary police force and a handful off ill trained militiamen. We may as well be spec on the elite's hooves for all we can threaten them._

"What about the civilians?"

Chaucer shook her head, her hardened composure slipping for just a brief moment. Connor suddenly recalled that she had a very young nephew still inside the capital.

"The major cities of Carna, Sidon and Phoen have been completely depopulated over the past two weeks. Their entire inhabitants were shipped to the camps just over the Siamese rivers."

"Do we have verified confirmation on exactly what purpose these facilities serve?"

The question was rhetorical. Humanity had not experienced the horror of industrialised cleansing in over five hundred years, but it had never forgotten.

In the end it was Barker who gave words to everyone's thoughts.

"There death camps, Sir."

"Each camp has a uniform design" Chaucer continued solemnly, "Fifty to a hundred sealed dormitories behind an octagon shaped enclosure. Covenant barracks, motor pool and administrative buildings are located in a separate linked camp. Each facility is based around a central bunker, armoured and reinforced."

"What its purpose?"

Chaucer paused, her hands curling into fists, "We believe that it is some form of pressurised energy chamber. The configuration is similar to the central plasma chamber found in Covenant plasma weapons, but on a much larger scale. Most likely…"

Barker cut her off before she could finish, "It's how there killing the prisoners in the camps Sir. The murderous swine are vaporizing us."

The five officers were silent, the terrible spectacle playing through all their heads. Chaucer's seven year old nephew, Connor's late uncle and aunt, Barker's stillborn daughter, mercifully spared this horror.

Chaucer shook her head, "There sheer size would allow the Covenant to dispose of hundreds, even thousands of prisoners at once."

"How many camps Lieutenant?"

There was the briefest pause before she answered, "Dozens, maybe over a hundred by now."

Connor lent forwards and placed both of his hands on the table, palms down. He regarded the map before him, an endless stream of figures running through his mind as he added up numbers, subtracted losses, accounted for casualties. He turned back towards Martinez imploringly, "What if we were to launch a raid, how likely…"

Martinez shook his head, "My scouts ran a full recon and analysis of one of the camps. Even if we could gather together enough cells for a raid, each camp has heavily entrenched defences and full battalion of Covenant infantry. Our losses would be unsustainable Sir, and even if we could tear a handful of prisoners from the camp, the Covenant could replace them in less than a day."

Connor cursed himself inwardly, nodding his head in seething agreement.

"Lieutenant, based on these camps rate of consumption, how long will it take until the Covenant run out of prisoners?"

Chaucer answered immediately. They'd all had their suspicions for weeks now, and plenty of time to mould their figures together.

"Two months Sir, perhaps three."

Silence descended over the five humans, their helplessness in light of the hellish world they found themselves inhabiting settling heavily on all their shoulder.

It was Barker who finally broke the silence.

"We have another problem Sir."

Connor glanced towards the constable and gestured for him to continue.

"These camps weren't just designed to exterminate New Carthage's population. There based over large mineral deposits, specifically large repositions of technetium. There using the prisoners to as slave labour to mine the raw materials then shipping it up into high orbit."

"You'll have to forgive me sergeant. Science was never my strong point."

"We use refined technetium during maintenance overhauls of Shaw-Fujikawa slip drive engines" Chaucer explained, "It's highly likely the Covenant use it for the same purpose. Without the technetium prolonged translight travel becomes impossible after a matter of weeks."

"You want to disrupt the Covenant supply shipments" Connor replied sceptically. He paused before shaking his head vehemently, "Absolutely out of the question!"

"Major" Barker growled.

"Out of the question" Connor repeated through gritted teeth, "Even if we could mount an operation with a marginal chance of success…"

"We've already identified a vulnerability in their standard supply route" Anderson cut in, "Deep inside the city. It's a perfect bottle neck. There are still a handful of resistance cells operating inside Novago, if we work together…"

"You know the Covenant will retaliate against the civilian population" Connor snapped, "It'll be the Turpel prairie massacre all over again."

Connor was suddenly back on the wind battered steppe outside the capital, Martinez and himself laid out under a camo-tent two months prior, mere hours after he'd ordered a Covenant checkpoint shelled. The surprise attack and subsequent fire fight through the old industrial unit had left almost fifty Covenant soldiers dead. A victory, or so Connor had thought. He had then watched as the aliens had rounded up over three thousand humans, Covenant elites and jackals marching them out into the grassland's that bordered the capital. There he had watched in stupefied horror as the entire starving terrified mass, infirm, old, young and newborn alike were harried together in one terrible moment before being mown down by scotching plasma and lancing beam fire from hundreds of Covenant plasma rifles and small-arms.

"Not again" Connor snarled, tears forming in his eyes, "I won't sign off another slaughter."

"They've killed millions already" Barker persisted, "If we don't take this opportunity to strike back, then they will all have died in vain."

"I said no!" Connor shouted.

Barker lurched up from his seat, thumping his huge fists down on the table. From the corner of his eyes he saw Martinez reach for the pistol at his side and for a moment thought Barker was going to charge him before Chaucer intervened clasping her hand on Barker's shoulder. The meaty Carthaginian turned towards her, his face fuming. She shook her head before speaking in a much calmer voice.

"Sir, the Covenant are wiping us out systematically, our entire race. The technetium is a key cornerstone in their war effort. If we can disrupt their supply chain, Sir it could have a greater impact on this war then an entire naval battle group. We will not get an opportunity like this again."

"There must be another way" Connor stated, "We can't let others suffer the consequences of our actions. It's not our place to gamble with the lives of thousands, potentially millions of innocent people."

"And if the Covenant were to reach Sol?" Chaucer replied calmly, "If their ships were to breach Earth's defence grid, Sir the casualties would be in the billions."

Connor's jaw clenched, molars grating together so hard they could have broken.

_She's right_ Connor thought furiously, _Damn it she's right._

It was that moment that the fight deserted him.

Connor collapsed back wearily into the factory Foreman's long abandoned chair, "You already have an initial strategy planned out for the ambush?"

Both Barker and Anderson nodded their heads in agreement.

"We've already made contact with the local resistance cells Sir" Anderson said "The convoy will be passing through in ten days."

"We'll take half the men" Connor decided, blinking away the sleet at the lip of his tear ducts, "Get me everything we have on the ambush site."

_God forgive me._

* * *

The Central Spire had been the first of many fortifications to be erected by the Covenant in the former human capital. Nestled into the heart of an expansive latticework of barracks, supply depots and defence turrets that occupied a great deal of central Novago, the five kilometre high spire served as a Command & Control centre for the entire Covenant occupation force across the Carthaginian system.

It was with a tepid amusement that Commander Taia' Korequee descended the Spire's executive gravity elevator, steeling himself for the evening that was to come. The elevator took him to the very base of the superstructure, beneath the C&C, primary defence matrix and auxiliary power core. It was here, buried half a mile into the planets crust that his guests awaited him.

Korequee stepped out of the elevator and found himself staring down a plain corridor, two Sangheili Honour Guards clad in gleaming armour standing sentry at the other end.

The Honour Guards greeted him silently. A simple blood swipe confirmed that he was Taia' Korequee, Sangheili, twenty seven cycles of age and not an imposter. Once the necessary formalities had been completed the two Guards tapped their ceremonial spears once on the floor. A hidden doorway behind them slid open and they waved the Commander through.

In contrast to the featureless corridor, the hidden quarters behind were anything but plain. The architects had clearly striven to replicate the luxurious mansion estates common to the Homeworld's or even High Charity, and as far as Korequee was concerned they had succeeded. A soft velvet rug curled beneath his hooves whilst the walls and ceiling were adorned with a myriad web of fantastically intricate tapestries from across the Covenant Empire. Korequee tried to remember when he had last seen such lavish comfort in what was still in theory an active pacification zone.

"My good Commander, you have arrived."

Korequee found his fellow guests in the bunker-palace's banquet hall, yet despite the length of the table only three individuals were seated.

The Prophet of Penance, their host for the evening was the first to greet him, the aged San 'Shyuum dabbing his long gnarled fingers with a silver napkin. With an almost elegant subtleness Penance edged his bobbling gravity throne back from the table, making a strained yet seemingly heartfelt attempt to welcome his guest like a long lost kinsmen.

"I thank you for your invitation Excellency" Korequee replied, allowing the elderly Prophet to guide him to his seat, "and ask that you forgive my late arrival."

Penance smiled, his wizened old features creasing in the artificial lighting. With an almost fatherly warmth he patted Korequee's shoulder, "Think nothing of it my child. Were I to throw down my hands and beg forgiveness for every invitation I had been late to attend, my spine would have snapped from exhaustion long ago."

The remaining guests at the table were both of Korequee's own race, one a towering patriarch in the resplendent golden armour of a Fleet Master and the other a strikingly beautiful female clad in the crimson robes and headdress of a Vestal High Priestess.

Penance waited until Korequee was seated then clapped his hands twice. A trio of Kig-yar servants in bleached white aprons and gloves emerged from the adjourning serving room, each bearing a stacked platter mounted on a gravity dais. One by one each dish was served up onto the table with trembling hands. Sliced meat, spiced herb bread, platted entrails of Jiralhanae thorn beast and bowls of Sangheili hulworms among other more exotic treats. Korequee blushed as his stomach growled, he had been subsiding on standard issue military rations these last few rotations, and the mere smell of the food threatened a mutiny within his bowels.

The servants retired to the kitchen and in ceremonial tradition Penance invited them to dine.

Korequee studied the two Sangheili as he ate. The male he recognized as Fleet Master Orsa' Talsharnee, the highest ranking officer of the Covenant Armada in the system and appointed Provisional Governor of the Nu Carthage. Talsharnee was a Sangheili of ancient lineage, one of the blue blooded elite of Sangheilios. They had met on several occasions but each time only by a stroke of fleeting chance. Korequee would not have held it against the aristocrat had he been remiss in recalling the Commander's name.

The female he recognized as High Priestess Seja' Ikarshree. He knew her by reputation only for they had never met. Korequee understood her to be the heiress of a wealthy if somewhat common family, their claws unstained by inter-clan politics. Yet it was common knowledge that she was as priestess of the Vestal Sisterhood's inner circle, reputed to have the ear of the High Imperator back on Sangheilios.

Looking at her for a moment Korequee saw something of his late bond mate in the High Priestess, her sharp features and lithe form flaring before his eyes for a brief moment. Ikarshree turned towards him, her emerald green eyes blinking as a heavy pressure pieced his hearts and threatening to smother him in its embrace.

And in another moment it was over. The priestess reached forward to refill her glass, averting her eyes as she reclined in her seat, sipping her wine.

The conversation at the table was informal and confined mostly between Penance and Talsharnee concerning matters of military and politics. Occasionally one of them would defer to Korequee when the conversation strayed to matters concerning planetary warfare, inviting Korequee's opinion as a 'ground brawler' as Talsharnee described the Covenant Ground Forces after he had consumed a tad bit to much wine. Korequee took no offense.

As the evening wore on the servants returned to clear the table, again wordlessly returning to the kitchens once there task was done. It was then that Penance turned to Korequee, the taught haggard skin of his face seeming to soften.

"My good Commander, you have spoken little this night and yet I sense there are so many questions you wish to ask me. Please Commander, I ask only for your honesty, lay your doubts at my feet."

Korequee drained the last of the wine from his glass, dabbing at his lower mandibles with the serviette as he thought. The San 'Shyuum seemed genuine enough in his sincerity and whilst he would not trust the politician as far as he could throw him, he decided now was a time to speak the truth, if at a measure.

"Why are we here Excellency?" Korequee asked, "Why the need for this occupation, the humans, the camps?"

He heard a soft chuckle from the High Priestess. From across the table Talsharnee smashed a heavy claw like hand down on the table with a thunderous crash. For a moment Korequee feared that his words had caused offense but then realized the Fleet Master was grinning.

"Exactly the point I have made ever since we first set hooves on this infernal ball of frozen rock!"

Penance reached forward and planted a long fingered hand on the Fleet Master's shoulder, his thin lips curling into a paternal old smile, "You ask an important question my children. Now please give an aged San 'Shyuum a few moments of respite to answer."

He paused, stroking the long hairs that drooped from his chin.

The High Priestess cut him off before he could speak.

"You both wish to know the true reason for this occupation. The reason that we have not simply exterminated every last human on this world and migrated in our own work force to mine the raw materials."

Ikarshree's words both pricked Korequee's interest and unnerved him to his core. Up till then the priestess had said very little, adding the odd comment or opinion but for the most part content to merely observe.

To hear her speak with such cold detachment, even if it were just human vermin they were discussing.

Penance fixed the Sangheili female with a furious glare, his soft fatherly composure evaporating in a second of pure anger.

For her part Ikarshree didn't even flinch.

"My dear friend, you welcomed them here as guests. Was the purpose of this night not to explain our presence here?"

Penance chewed at his shrivelled lips. Finally at a gesture from his wrist he waved her to continue.

Ikarshree spread her claw like hands onto the table before her, clicking her lower mandibles before she began, "Both of you are soldiers, you fight with the weapons and equipment you are provided with. It is only natural for you to look upon the resources we have sunken into this world and ask if they could not be better spent elsewhere."

"We cannot be here for mere resources or this world's strategic value" Korequee conceded, "The shear volume of troops we have here. My Special Operation Brigades do not warrant mere occupation duty."

"I agree" Talsharnee stated, "The moment we had this system secure we could have transported an army of workers to this world. Enough to scalpel every single drop of technetium within half a cycle."

"Excuse me one moment brothers" Ikarshree said as she rose from her seat. She was tall, taller the Korequee had first thought when she had been seated. She turned and walked towards the nearest cabinet. By her sombre movements Korequee could tell that there was strength beneath her elaborate robes and headdress, not merely a strong sense of will but a powerful body, honed and disciplined. He would not be surprised if she had served as a warrior in her youth and made a mental note to enquire as to her background.

"I apologize" Ikarshree said as she poured herself a glass of water, "Wine is a luxury I rarely afford myself."

She lifted the glass to her mandibles and consumed the water, swallowing the entire content of the silver beaker in one mouthful. Korequee stretched his back as they waited, cracking a saw knuckle.

"The strategic value of this world should not be so casually overlooked" she continued, "Its position anti-spinward of our forces makes it a vital cornerstone in our supply lines. Were the humans to launch a counterattack, if they succeeded in crippling the repair yards we have installed in orbit, such a setback could prove to be, problematic."

"You fear them" Talsharnee snorted dismissively.

"Fear them?" Ikarshree mused as she turned back towards the table, pausing as she appeared to lend thought to the Fleet Masters remark, "No. But I will not ignore their capacity for destruction."

"You speak as if there is a defined logic to their heretical ways."

Talsharnee almost spat the words and Korequee was suddenly glad the two Honour Guards were outside the sealed chamber and not inside.

"They are barbarians" the Fleet Master roared, clasping his claw like hands to fists in the air, "Even if they had the intelligence and resolve to identify this world's strategic importance, what could they possibly throw at us. More of their primitive warships", he dismissed the notion with a slash of his claws, "My fleet would burn their crude vessels to molten cinders before they ever breached the outer system. You speak as if these filthy primates have an abundance of ships to waist. Their fleets are stretched thin. Any battle group they could dispatch would be a token force and best, to be obliterated."

"War is not a simple matter of two bludgeons" Ikarshree replied apparently unfazed by the Talsharnee retort, "They reached this world once, they can do so again. A single ship or a single soldier Fleet Master, positioned to the right time and place, can cripple an empire."

Talsharnee lent back in his chair, fixing the High Priestess with a carious glare, "You surprise me Ikarshree. I would have thought a daughter of the Vestal Sisterhood would have had more faith. Faith in the Forerunner's to see our crusade to fruition, faith in our fleets and armies to exterminate these cowardly humans."

"You ask me if I support our crusade against this heathen race" Ikarshree said as she made her way back to the table, "I rejoice with every infested world we glass the humans from. You ask me if I have faith in our warrior's ability to prosecute this campaign to its ultimate conclusion. We will burn their kind from this galaxy as surely as the sun will rise on Sangheilios tomorrow. Fear not Fleet Master, I despise the humans with every fibre of my being. They are a pestilence, nothing more and they will be eradicated."

She reached forward and clasped the chairs cushioned headrest with her manicured claws, "But I will not see them underestimated. They are more dangerous then you realize."

The Priestess's words sent an acidic chill down Korequee's spine. He had no love for the humans, more something of a mutual deterrence.

He would have been loath to call in respect, but still. To hear one of such feminine grace and beauty talk of any race, even the humans as if they were nothing more than a thimble roach that she had crushed beneath her hoof.

"Then why are we here?" Talsharnee growled again.

Ikarshree took her seat, pausing at the Fleet Master's question, her mandibles clenched tightly.

Penance leaned forward in his throne, forgotten in the swelling tempest of the last few seconds, "Tell them Seja."

"Are yes" the Priestess conceded softly, "The opposing side of the coin?"

"What?" Talsharnee seethed.

"Allow me to be blunt Fleet Master. For all my warnings of caution, we are winning this war. Technologically, militarily and culturally the humans are simply outmatched. We engage them on all fronts, grinding them further back towards their home system cycle after cycle. It was never a question of if, but rather when we would reach their homeworld."

"And this answers my question how?"

Ikarshree smiled, her sharp teeth glinting malevolently behind her mandibles, "It answers everything."

Talsharnee shook his head in undisguised annoyance, his powerful throat muscles tensing as he prepared a retort. Korequee answered first.

"The Great Journey!"

Both the High Priestess and the Fleet Master twisted towards him, the high born male fuming at his interruption. Penance shielded him.

"The ancient records spoke that at the end of days the faithful would be confronted by a demon race. There at the cusp of ascension they would try to turn us from the light."

"The humans?" Korequee mused rhetorically.

"Perhaps" Ikarshree replied, her voice suddenly distant, "And perhaps not. We know not what form the Great Journey will take. The ancient texts may have been speaking literally, or symbolically. Each of us has our inner demons buried deep within us Commander, demons that must be overcome if we are ever to become one with the God's."

Penance stirred in his throne. Here and now they had touched on the very subject of this simple meal, "There are those among us who will never tread the path of the Great Journey" he began, "They believe themselves righteous and deserving of our Lord's favour. Some are but lowly servants, other individuals of high birth and rank to whom a great many look to for guidance. Some even sit on the High Council."

Korequee felt suddenly very uncomfortable in his seat. They had not even concluded their crusade against the humans and already it seemed Penance and Ikarshree were planning for the next.

"Back to my original question then" Talsharnee snarled through tightly clenched mandibles, "You speak of heresy, kin strife and perhaps civil war. Lines are being drawn, allegiances sworn, this I understand but what advantage are we to garner from this miserable frozen little rock?"

Ikarshree smiled again, that gentle benign smile that chilled Korequee's soul, "Humans have not always infested this world Fleet Master. Many Millennia ago this world was home to another race, a race who's technological marvels appear to have exceeded the psychical limits of this plain."

Talsharnee paused, his lower mandibles twitching as her words sunk in, "This was a Forerunner colony?"

"Colony" Ikarshree mused, "Outpost, scientific or military base, perhaps all of them and more. We are still in the process of cataloguing the ruins."

"Ruins" Korequee gasped. Even the scantest of Forerunner relics was enough to propel an ambitious politician to the highest rungs of power, "Do the Hierarch's know?"

"Do you really believe they would still allow the humans to infest this world if they new the truth" Penance scowled, the skin beneath his eyes suddenly drawn and taught, "And now perhaps you understand our dilemma. Were we to ship ten million workers to this world, we could not keep them from every corner nor could we conceal our excavations. Word would spread I assure you, first rumours, then names. Soon the Hierarch's would be concerned enough to dispatch the Inquisition. But with this world firmly under military occupation, internal security provides us with the perfect opportunity to strip this world of riches far more valuable than mere technetium."

"What is it that you want from us?" Korequee asked, finally coming to comprehend their purpose on this world.

"My dear Commander" Ikarshree replied as she turned towards him. Her voice was soft like that of another female he had once known, seemingly from another life, "Civil war is inevitable, I assure you of that. I know not when or where it will break out or who will stand with us and who will stand against us. When that day comes, fifty legions, two dozen of your Special Operation Brigades and an hundred warships in orbit of this world could well decide the outcome of that conflict, and our path to ultimate ascension. Commander, Fleet Master, we ask for your allegiance."

* * *

The orphanage had always been cold during the winter seasons on New Carthage.

Alex lay awake on his rickety wireframe mattress, listening to the moans and snores of the other children crowded into the basement. His eyes were on the antique styled wristwatch in his hands, his lips moving silently as he counted down the seconds in his mind.

The orphanage had never been the warmest of buildings during the freezing winters on New Carthage, but at least a year ago Alex and the other orphans had the comfort of proper beds and half a dozen portable radiators. Power had been one of the first things the Covenant had taken from the humans of the capital, and ever since Alex and the other children had made do with as many layers of tattered woollen blankets as they could scavenge.

The second hand passed twelve, shunting the hour hand to six hours past midnight. Alex crawled out from beneath his blankets, careful not to wake his companions. Scooping his cloths under one arm the ten year old child crept barefoot towards the far edge of the basement. Easing the storage locker door open Alex promptly dressed himself, slipping on his traded jumper, trousers, gloves and a woollen hat.

Fully clothed, Alex searched blindly in the darkness, carefully running his hands over the stacked boxes and tins, fully aware that the even the smallest clink caused by a falling item would bring the adults upstairs racing down to find him.

The building had not always been an orphanage. Generations ago it had been used to store fossil fuels for the then largely isolated human colony. Alex found the coal shoot with relative ease. Worming his way up the shaft, he forced open the shutter at the top of the chute with both hands.

It was still dark in the adjacent street, the first rays of the morning sun dribbling across the horizon behind the human buildings whilst thickly layered snow filled the road too ankle depth. Alex found the package quickly, a small rucksack stuffed under the blackened shell of an automobile, its size ideal for the young boy.

Strapping the bag over his shoulders Alex checked his watch again, the cold air biting at the exposed skin between his sleeve and glove. Fifteen minutes past the hour. He set off.

Officially the curfew that extended across the city expired at six hours past midnight. Even so there were very few signs of life in the city. The odd curtain twitched behind a window. Hunched decrepit figures scrambled from street to street and in sheltered corners humans gathered around lighted flames.

Alex stayed off the main roads as best he could, sticking to the side streets and alleyways all the while preying the Covenant had not changed their checkpoints again. He was making his way down a deserted avenue perhaps thirty minutes after slipping out of the orphanage when he heard the dreaded drone of the alien's hovercraft behind him.

Alex continued on, his pacing unchanged.

_Never run_ they had told him, _Never stop, never linger and never run, less they know you will have something to hide._

The drone increased in its volume, augmented with the course guttural hisses of alien voices. Alex felt a stab of fear as he sensed movement from the corner of his eye, knowing full well that if was to bolt now he would be gunned down before he even cleared the pavement.

The alien hovercraft passed him by without stopping, a crimson beetle like patrol skimmer followed by a dark bluish troop transport packed with towering saurian like elites and jackals. Alex kept his eyes low to the ground, his gaze averted and his breathing steady.

_Never make eye contact_ they had told him, _And never let them see your face._

The convoy passed him by without incident, the Covenant soldiers barely taking notice of the small dirty human. As they rounded the street corner Alex crossed the road and ducked into a narrow alleyway.

Another fifteen minutes and he had reached the outskirts of the old market district in the southern quarter of the city. He felt safer here. Humans moved about in greater numbers and more frequent regularity.

_Lose yourself in the crowd, hide in plain sight._

Alex emerged from the alley at the edge of the main trading forum. Even at this early hour the marketplace teamed with people exploring the braziers and stalls on display, dozens and dozens of them. Alex was just about to cross the narrow street into the square when three sleek Covenant troop transports pulled up to the edge of the plaza, a swarm of heavily armed Covenant soldiers emerging from their hovercraft.

Alex shrank back into the alleyway, terror clawing at his insides. He saw the Covenant soldier's storm into the crowd. There were cries of fear and alarm, desperate pleading, human in origin and once again the thick guttural language of Covenant elites. He saw the alien soldiers singling out humans at random from the crowd, marching the Novagian's towards the edge of the square. To his horror Alex realized that one such group of Covenant elites was heading directly towards the alleyway, their weapons drawn.

Alex scrambled back the way he had come, but as he emerged from the other end of the alleyway he caught glimpse of another Covenant patrol blocking the road.

Alex panicked, frantically searching the alleyway for somewhere to hide. The doors were all locked, the windows barred with nailed wood. Alex could hear the first party of Covenant soldiers at the edge of the square now, their long shadows sweeping down the brick walls of the alley. If they were to search him right now, open his pack and see what was stuffed inside. Terrible memories filled his mind, emancipated humans strung up like rag dolls from lamp posts, beaten and bloodied corpses rotting in the gutters.

Hurriedly he found a shallow alcove where the two building met. He crammed the backpack into the tiny niche and pulled forward a heavy metal dustbin to cover the recess. Despite the freezing temperature sweat dripped from Alex brow as he glanced at the furrow the dustbin had left in the snow.

He had nothing to cover it with!

"_Humane, stop where you are!"_

* * *

The human crowd dispersed the moment the armoured Shadow transports skimmed to a halt at the edge of the square, the squat soft-skinned alien's miraculously remembering that they had somewhere else to be.

Suka' Nakitee gave her equipment one final cursory check. Her shields read fully charged and her internal gel layer was warm. All clamps in her combat harness were secure and her plasma carbine was fully charged. Satisfied she thumbed the release rune on her wrist gauntlet and with a magnetic thump her armour demagnetised, allowing the Sangheili to step down from the Shadow's troop deck.

"At last" Falshree purred from beside her, grasping the sleek storm-rifle in her claw like hands, "Time for some fun."

The assault lance moved out from their transport, thirty nine Sangheili females supported by a phalanx of sixty Kig-yar auxiliaries. With the exception of a handful of faces the lance was unchanged, its females the same soldiers Nakitee had served with throughout her deployment across the Talakreche worlds. Tasmansee as usual took point, a powerful Concussion-Rifle poised across her huge shoulders whilst Ahrmonree covered the flank. Zakamee took up position with the rear guard, her seldom used Needler strapped at her hip whilst a sealed medical pack was clamped between her shoulder blades.

At the lance's head was their new commander, a towering veteran in battle scarred crimson armour named Kan' Veskeriee. She was almost twice the age of the youngest recruits in the lance and Nakitee understood that this was her sixth tour of duty in five cycles.

Of the two missing Sangheili, Nakitee had heard that one of them had broken an arm during a rather wild night out in Luminare's capital the evening of their return. The other had failed to report for duty and when summoned had absconded from the city. It mattered little to the lance, cohort or legion. The military authorities caught up with all deserters soon enough.

"Move out" Veskeriee hissed gesturing towards the market square with a sharp sweep of her hand, "Full spread, round up a third of the humans for random search and prosecution."

The lance stormed the market square in short order, the warriors fanning out in an ark to cut off any potential stragglers. Falshree sighted two male humans by one of their crude market stools and signalled them out to Nakitee, a mischievous grin tugging at her lower mandibles.

"Humans, halt and kneel" Falshree shouted gesturing with her storm-rifle, her grasp of the human tongue less then perfect. The closest of the squat pink skinned aliens shakily raised its hands, its ugly face twisting in fear as the two Sangheili females approached. Together they rounded up a third human then marched the three prisoners at gunpoint towards the edge of the square where Tasmansee and Ahrmonree had two more humans on their knees. The four Sangheili herded them towards an open alley out of immediate sight of their companions in the market, ushering them towards a tight corner.

A flicker of movement in the corner of her eye caught Nakitee's attention. She twisted on her heel and snapped up her carbine, shouting a warning to halt. A human youngling spun to face the Sangheili warriors, its pasty hands raised as if he had been caught stealing.

One of the humans chose that moment to break from its huddled companions, sprinting towards the open market square. Ahrmonree dropped him with a lancing beam to his chest. The weakling creature tumbled backwards into the midst of its cowering kin.

"Stay where you are" Tasmansee hissed, threatening to drill the entire terrified group with one sweep of her weapon. The blood soaked humans raised their trembling hands, one falling to his knees in terror.

"Was it hiding?" Ahrmonree asked.

Nakitee shrugged her shoulders, her carbine still levelled at the human youth, "We'll find out, Falshree cover the rear."

With a throaty chortle Falshree walked towards the other side of the alley and positioned herself to cover the only other angle of approach. With her flank secure Nakitee holstered her carbine on the magnetic strip running along the small of her back before striding towards the human. Up close the youngling barely reached her thighs. Nakitee reached down then paused. How exactly was she supposed to search one so, small?

She grasped the human youth under his arms and seated the child on one of the metallic like cans which dotted the alleyway. Wasting no time she patted down the human youngling whilst Tasmansee began her own less then gentle body search of the other humans, Ahrmonree and Falshree snickering in amusement whenever one of the aliens yelped in pain. For his part the child endured Nakitee's probing claws with stoic silence as she rifled through his meagre clothing, checking all the usual spots someone may try to hide something. Nakitee felt a sickening lurch in her stomach as she realized just how little meat the child had on his spine.

One of the humans screamed as Tasmansee twisted his forearm in her grasp, the unmistakable sound of a bone cracking echoing down the alleyway. With a blood curdling cry the human fell to his knees, he was pleading for his life, tears streaming down his eyes even as Tasmansee drew her sidearm.

Nakitee clasped her claw her claw like hand over the child temple and folded his head in towards her chest, blocking his view of what was about to happen. He struggled but Nakitee kept her arm curled around him as Tasmansee shot the screaming human point blank in the head.

With methodical precision Tasmansee blasted out the second humans knee cap sending the young female face first into the snow. She screeched in pain, thrashing like a wild animal until a second plasma bolt to the back of the skull silenced her forever. For each hissing plasma bolt, for each and every tortured scream Tasmansee produced as she ran the humans through one by one Nakitee felt the child flinch in her claws, and as it came to an end he was shaking violently against her chest.

Only one human adult remained, an aged male curled into the alley's corner and blabbering like a newborn hatchling. Tasmansee stowed her sidearm and drew a shimmering plasma blade from her gauntlet. Stepping over his dead companions she reached down and cut his throat.

"All prisoners prosecuted" Tasmansee said coldly, "Nakitee, anything from that one?"

Nakitee shook her head, hoisting the human youngling from the can, "Nothing whatsoever. I've seen more fat on an Unggoy house slave." She deposited the child back on the ground.

A quick nudge from her hoof thawed the human from his stupor. The boy stumbled backwards, twisted and scrambled from the alley.

"No sense in leaving one alive" Ahrmonree said. She raised her beam rifle, Falshree following suit with her own weapon.

"No don't!" Nakitee said waving them down.

"Why?" Falshree hissed.

"Veskeriee records all ammunition expenditure. If she finds out we wasted fresh plasma on a human whelp, let's just say it will be unpleasant for all involved. Use a blade."

Ahrmonree looked at her sceptically, her brow furrowing in confusion, "Why didn't you use your own?"

"And befoul my armour with that little abominations blood" Nakitee hissed, "I'd prefer not to sister. It's hardly going to slit my throat in the night."

"Probably couldn't even reach the bed" Falshree chuckled.

Ahrmonree paused, her rifle still sighted on the human youth. From the edge of her peripheral vision Nakitee knew the human was almost at the edge of the alley, but he could still be cut down with just one flick of the sharpshooter's clawed forefinger.

"Where did you hear about Veskeriee?" Tasmansee asked.

"Rumours" Nakitee shrugged, "They've been floating around the barracks ever since we arrived. I didn't know if they were true or not, though evidently we're likely soon going to find out."

Tasmansee glanced at her sidearm, resignedly shaking her head, "Something to look forward to at least. Always best to learn your Commander's moods early."

"And from a distance" Ahrmonree added as she lowered her rifle, "Come, before she starts looking for us."

The four Sangheili females moved back towards the square, regrouping with the rest of the lance. Nakitee climbed back into the armoured Shadow transport and the convoy departed to resume its patrol for that morning.

* * *

The encounter with the Covenant elites had shaken Alex to his core. His legs carried him safely from the alleyway and the towering alien warriors, and once he was safely tucked away where no one could see they failed him.

Alex curled himself into a ball inside a vacant doorway, fighting to control his shaking limbs. Every time he regained control of his breathing he heard the blood curdling screams and every time he closed his eyes he saw the jade green blast of light mixed with crimson blood in the snow. Eventually he could not fight it any longer. The nausea overtook him and in that moment and he heaved up the meager contents of his stomach in the doorway.

It was a good few minutes before Alex found the strength to stand on his own two feet, and even then he had to seek the support of the wall. The responsibility that others had placed on his shoulders filled the child with a reserve of strength he never knew he had.

Shakily but with purpose he made him way back towards the alley.

The elites were gone, and Alex found his hidden pack undisturbed in the alcove where he had left it. He avoided the bodies, circling around the market square rather then going through it.

The rest of his journey was mercifully uneventful and with the exception of one of their passing dropship's Alex didn't set eyes on another Covenant soldier.

It was perhaps an hour after his encounter with the elites that Alex reached the old hospital at the edge of the city's southern quarter. It was warm inside the building, though the air was stuffy and mingled with the damp stench of blood. Alex navigated his way through the rag drabbed mass of moaning Carthaginians that packed the forward reception area.

"Alam?" he asked the passing nurses and orderlies, "Doctor Alam?"

"He upstairs" murmured a flustered woman in a tattered lab coat. Kneeling beside an older man, she clicked her fingers towards two orderlies, "Prep him with a quarter of the standard dose them prep him for surgery, quickly now."

Inside the hospital the corridors were packed with the sick and dying. Weak starved humans littered every room. The lucky ones lay on stretchers with perhaps a blanket draped over them while the most forgone lined the walls and floor moaning for water. Alex made his way up through the hospital, back to the same room he always visited when he came here. He met Alam just outside the room, almost running smack into the dark skinned doctor.

"Is she Ok?"

"She's fine Alex" Alam said raising his hands, "She's safe, go and see her."

Without further greeting Alex handed the pack to the Doctor and entered the hospital ward.

"Alex!"

The young girl was weak, her voice tired but she struggled to sit up, scratching at the feeding tube that pricked her elbow. Finally freeing herself from the tangled blankets she hugged her brother.

"Mum, Dad?"

"There fine Sarah" he lied, "There fine."

"When will they come? It's been so long."

"There'll be here soon Sis" Alex said stroking his sister's cheek, "There'll be here soon."

From the doorway Alam riffled through the pack. Antibiotics, insulin, freshly packaged bioform. The basic essentials that kept the hospital running, if only barely. The Covenant occupation had long ago severed any regular supply shipments to the human hospitals across New Carthage. Now the handful of doctors and nurses remaining were left to beg, borrow and steel everything they could just to keep the hospital functional. The scattered human resistance forces outside the urban centres offered the only source of organized logistics for essential supplies.

Alam hated using children like Alex as the couriers, but what other choice did they have?

He flagged down a passing nurse and handed her the supplies.

"Get these to inventory quickly, and then meet me upstairs. We'll check on the burn victims from last night."

The nurse took the supplies and glanced into the open ward, "His sister?"

Alam nodded, "Poor girl was admitted just before the Covenant fleet breached the system. She was diagnosed with Maltab Syndrome, untreatable and terminal."

The nurse paused behind him, wiping a tear from her eye, "Do they have any other family?"

"Parents have been dead for over a year. The disease affects her memory, she recalls their last moments together, but can't ascertain how much time has passed."

"How long does she have?"

Alam paused, biting his lip, "Six months. She'll never leave this hospital."

The nurse left without a word. Alam watched the two siblings a few minutes longer before leaving to check on his many patients.

It was perhaps an hour later that Alex left the ward, his visit having exhausted his six year old sister back to sleep. Alam met him on the way out, drawing him to the side.

"You're a brave lad son" Alam said, placing his hands on Alex's shoulders, "Now what do you do if the Covenant ever catch you with the pack?"

"Tell them to go fuck themselves!"

Alam rasped the boys temple with his knuckle, his face deathly serious.

"You tell them my name" he said calmly, "My address, appearance, where I work and the color of my skin. You tell them I gave you the pack, and then you keep your mouth shut."

Alex stared at him, his lips twisted in distaste but slowly shook his head.

"Good lad" Alam said, "Now get back to the orphanage before you're missed."

Alex scarpered out of the hospital. Alam ran his fingers through his hair, dreading the day that it happened. He was not afraid to die, he had seen it all too often, but for the boy to be subjected to pain and torture, he couldn't bare that. He held no illusions about their captor's final solution to the human population of New Carthage, but he had to try.

All he could hope for was that Alex and his sister died a painless death.


	4. Chapter 3 - Ambush

**Chapter 3 – Ambush**

_**[Except] Post Deployment Personnel Review Of Terrestrial Legionnaire Suka' Nakitee (First Class) by Field Commander San' Galtarshee / Entry 568795/0485043**_

_Legionnaire Suka' Nakitee displays great aptitude for high stress military environments..._

_...ambushed by Jiralhanae insurgents during a standard patrol in the Dakaran province. Legionnaire Nakitee returned to the point vehicle which was under intense enemy fire at the time and extracted a wounded sister legionnaire..._

_...engaged and killed two Jiralhanae insurgents in hand to hand close quarters combat..._

_...recommended Legionnaire Nakitee for advancement into the Special Operations Group effective immediately..._

_...Initial training course complete, candidate scored overall tally of 96% in all relevant fields. Her father will be very proud when..._

_...strongly recommend you consider for advancement to junior officer rank at later date..._

_...dropped out of training at final stage. Stated personnel reasons for voluntary de-selection from the training process. I do not understand her decision..._

_...pleaded with me not to inform her parents of her nomination to the Special Operation's Group. Attempted to convince her to resume where she left off but her decision is final, and I will respect it forever how much I disagree with her choice. The Covenant Ground Forces have lost a fine warrior this day..._

* * *

**Location: Covenant Occupied Human Colony World New Carthage**

**Date: 12 / 02 / 2545 (Human Military Calendar)**

**8 Days after the events of Chapter 2**

**49 Days prior to events of Prologue**

Taia' Korequee had quickly come to despise the human world of Nu Carthage.

It was not the incessant winter blizzards that seemed locked to this blasted world's seasons and nor was it the filthy claustrophobic cities that dotted the prime continent. It was not even the verminous humans themselves that he had come to truly hate these past few rotations.

What the Commander truly despised was the truly absurd twist in logic which dictated that in a crusade spanning hundreds of worlds, two dozen of his Special Operation Brigades should be relegated to mere guard duty on this half frozen rock.

Korequee's Sangheili were the best warriors the military Academies on Sepheria Luminare had produced, perhaps the best in the entire Covenant Empire and yet they were required to wet nurse this patchwork army Penance had thrown together to occupy the human planet.

"…the quotas are falling short in every settlement…"

Korequee stirred from his slumber as the golden armoured Sangheili smashed his curled fist down onto raised dais in the centre of the chamber.

"Sector 5 production has fallen by twelve percent in the last fifteen standard rotations" the Field Master continued, his powerful claws curled around a datascroll at his hip, "Sector 7 and 9 have fallen by fifteen percent. Across the entire world we are expecting a cumulative loss of over thirty thousand units of raw materials."

The chamber was a sealed octagon on the eighty first storey of the Central Spire, far beyond the reach of any of the human's improvised missiles or projectiles. The chamber's occupants this day were a mixture of Sangheili and San 'Shyuum military officers, aristocrats and religious officials. The Prophet of Penance was slumped on his bobbling gravity thrown, his eyes wandering the smooth walls while a gnarled hand propped up his chin. Across from the Prophet sat both Fleet Master Talsharnee and High Priestess Ikarshree. Each were attired in their ceremonial robes and armour and both seemed to have lost all interest in the Field Master's ramblings. An assortment of Jiralhanae mercenaries and private military contractors stood outside the council meeting, their stance a distinct divide from their 'allies.'

Slowly Penance shifted his gaze back to the Field Master, his thin wiry fingers slipping under his cloak, "And can we safely assume Field Master that when such losses are suffered, appropriate punishments are carried out, promptly and efficiently?"

"Every time a work quota is failed we execute a predetermined numbers of humans across each settlement" the Field Master responded, "Each selected human's entire extended family is executed with them."

Korequee snorted. The Field Master glared at him but before he could rebuke the Commander others gave voice to their thoughts.

"So we are butchering the healthiest of our slave labor force" Ikarshree mused, exchanging a mutual glance with Talsharnee as she threaded her claws across her lap, "and the Field Master wonders why production suddenly drops? I fear he is missing something quite obvious."

A chorus of muted chuckles echoed throughout the chamber as the Field Master twisted towards the High Priestess. Unshaken the zealot clicked his lower mandibles in a shrug, "As I remember it was your own recommendation, High Priestess that we limit such executions to the oldest and most infirm of the humans. Statistics have shown our new methods to be much more efficient. These vermin have shown themselves to be much more productive when they believe there is a genuine danger to their immediate family. By wiping out the entire linage, we neutralize the possibility of any retaliation for executed kin."

"And yet our warrior's still fall victim to ambushes and isolated attacks" Korequee hissed smacking his open palm down on the armrest of his seat, "This indigenous human resistance force continues to strike at our forces across the planet."

"An insurgent human faction in the aftermath of an invasion was always a possibility" Penance cut in with a wave of his hand, "If not a full gone conclusion. While the loss of our warriors is regrettable Commander, suitable retaliations are always carried out against the human population. For now we must address these failed work quotas and their consequent impact on our holy crusade."

From behind Ikarshree a junior priestess rose from her seat, "Perhaps in this affair we have overestimated the human's abilities."

The chamber fell silent as she smoothed down her elaborate robes and headdress, "They are a week race, unfit for the lowest platforms of the Great Journey. Perhaps we must face the reality that they have reached their physical boundaries, and those boundaries will always be beneath our expectations. The Hierarchs and through them the Holy Forerunners themselves decried their fate after all, complete and utter eradication."

Mummers of agreement filtered from among the gathered officers and nobles, and few raised any dissident to the junior priestess's words. With a nod the Field Master folded his arms as the female retook her seat, "An accurate assessment" the Field Master began, "This trial has tested our resolve for too long. I put the motion to this council that we should carry out a general order of extermination against the human population of this world. It could be completed in mere days, and we could have a suitable number of Jiralhanae workers here by the end of this world's annual cycle."

The Jiralhanae visibly bristled at this mention of them, fangs grating and fists tightened. The Field Master made no indication that he had noticed the slight he had made, and many voices rose in support of him, but crucially not all of them.

"We have invested far too much in this occupation to see it squandered in such a way" Penance wheezed, waving down further argument with a brush of his long fingered hand, "When the time is right the humans of this world will be dealt with, but we cannot afford any further disruption to the supply of raw materials to the front lines. We must decide on a solution to the problems at hand."

"Does that solution include the guerilla actions against our bases and patrols?" Korequee asked, the heavy Sangheili shifting in his seat as he leant forward.

"As I have already expressed Commander, the loss of our Covenant's sons and daughters is regrettable" Penance replied, his cold blue eyes blinking a warning, "But bears no relevance to the subject this council is discussing."

"With the greatest of respect Excellency" Korequee pressed, "I consider the two to be inexplicably linked."

Penance raised a quizzical eyebrow, "Go on."

Korequee rose to his hooves, stretching his calves and back as all eyes turned towards him. He could almost feel Talsharnee's glare burning into his armour.

"I have received a number of disturbing reports from my field officers over the last few rotations concerning the Jiralhanae's use of captive humans for hunting."

A thickly built Jiralhanae sporting a white mane of hair around his neck pushed through his companions at the edge of the chamber. A sudden glare from Penance halted him, but his fiery eyes did not leave Korequee.

"Surely you would not deny your allies their sport Commander" the Jiralhanae Chieftain replied, shifting his eyes imploringly to the seated Sangheili and San 'Shyuum. "The right of the hunt is a sacred tradition upon my Homeworld, fully recognized and endorsed by the High Council. As a member species of the Holy Covenant is one of our most basic and sacrosanct rights."

"The legality of your hunts is not my concern" Korequee retorted, "But their subsequent repercussions are."

"Repercussions?" the Chieftain snorted dismissively, "Our prey never survives the hunt, of that I assure you. Whether by plasma, bludgeon or the fang they all die."

"But their relatives are left alive" Korequee snapped back as he turned towards the Prophet of Penance, "And thanks to the remains our 'allies' see fit to leave behind quite literally untraceable. Each surviving kin of the slain is a possible insurgent for the human resistance. Each one of their 'sports' puts our warriors in greater danger."

The Jiralhanae visibly straightened at this blatant accusation, his fang filled maw opening to speak but Penance waived him to silence.

"The Commander raises a valid point Vorackus", Penance mused as he turned back towards the Jiralhanae, "And a very grave threat to our security. From this day forward these hunts end. I want you to personally stamp out any such activities, is that clear?"

The Chieftain whose name was Vorackus was silent for a moment, his features twisted in a silent brooding rage but after a few moments he un-furrowed his brow, "As you wish Excellency."

A fleeting moment of calm and silence returned to the chamber.

Bobbing atop his gravity throne, Penance turned back towards the golden armoured Sangheili he had been addressing earlier, "Field Master Satoroquee, let us hope these actions will remedy this situation. In the meantime, double the number of humans executed for each failed quota."

* * *

It was several hours later that the council session concluded and Korequee was able to escape the tedious duties of his rank. Nursing his sore neck the Sangheili rose from his seat and made his way past the congregation of his chattering kin and through the open doorway.

Ikarshree ambushed him as he strode towards the Spire's main promenade, appearing at his side seemingly from nowhere. With a smile the priestess grasped his arm in her smooth claws, guiding him from the crowd of departing officers and officials.

It was with a tired curiosity that Korequee allowed himself to be led to one of the promenades many verandas where a granite bench provided a stunning view of the distant human mountains.

"It would appear you've made an enemy this day Commander" Ikarshree said, gesturing back towards the open council chamber. Korequee glanced in the direction she was indicating. On the raised steps he saw the Jiralhanae Chieftain emerge, one of the last to leave. By his side was another Jiralhanae of slightly smaller stature, his fur was auburn brown but he carried no obvious tribal rankings.

"It's an occupational hazard of my career" Korequee replied, "He'll have to join the queue."

Ikarshree chuckled softly, massaging her lower mandibles.

The veranda had not been built as a hiding place, but the artificial trees that formed the enclosure made it an ideal spot for someone who wanted to sit and eavesdrop on passing parties.

"Who is he?"

"The larger of the two's name is Vorackus" Ikarshree replied, "His rank is, how would I describe it, superficial. He was exiled from Doisac cycles ago after a failed coup. Reputably even his own tribe has a bounty on his head. Just his head. Not his body."

Korequee paused, watching as the Chieftain began to descend the promenade steps himself, his young adjutant in tow.

"Then he's in no position to be making enemies."

"On the contrary Commander" Ikarshree said, "Vorackus is alive today because he has made enemies. Penance uses him as his enforcer for silencing problems. His entire makeshift pack is comprised of the worst individuals you could imagine, Jiralhanae who were cast out by their own tribes. The one by his side is Krausx, reputably Vorackus's adopted nephew He killed the son of a Sangheili councilor, its rumored he did it to gain acceptance among Vorackus's pack."

"You and Penance" Korequee reflected as he turned towards the lithe priestess, "You virtually run this world between you. Is Vorackus solely his enforcer, or yours as well?"

Ikarshree smiled, white teeth flashing in the sunlight behind her mandibles as she lifted her claw like hands to her hips, "Vorackus has his uses Commander, but I would not consider such a blunt instrument as himself an asset. When it comes to silencing problems, I have more subtle yet direct methods."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

"Vorackus usefulness is almost at an end" Ikarshree replied, her deep green eyes were suddenly cold and her voice had lost the warmth with which she had first spoken, "Let us just say that like the humans of this world, his lifespan can now be measured in days, not cycles."

On the promenade the two Jiralhanae passed by their veranda seemingly unaware of the conversation taking place. Korequee watched as the two of them bordered the gravity lift on the main level and disappeared down the glimmering chute.

"If he has outlasted his usefulness, why need I concern myself?"

"For that very reason exactly, Commander" Ikarshree replied, "Vorackus likely suspects his mutual relationship with the Prophet is about to come to a rather unhealthy and unnatural end. With an entire battalion of loyal Jiralhanae sociopaths behind him and outwardly nothing to lose, I would watch your back Commander."

Korequee kept silent as he mulled over her words, considering the very literal stinging nest he had landed in on this cursed world. Without a further word Ikarshree departed, making her way back towards the Spire's main temple.

"Whose side are you on priestess?" he called after her.

Ikarshree paused, the sole of one hoof poised beneath her draping robes.

"Side?" she queried, tasting the word on her tongue. "The Forerunners of course, you over think these things Commander."

Korequee watched the beautiful female leave, the high altitude gently buffeting her robes as she walked away. Her raw strength reminded him of another female, another life ago.

There was no doubt about it.

He hated everything about this world.

* * *

"Checkmate, this is castle. Geese are in season. I say again, geese are in season."

_The convoy was on approach_

Major Connor paused at the edge of the plaza, the rest of his fire team doing there best to melt into the passing crowd, their ballistic vests and small arms obscured under a motley assortment of trench-coats, heavy jackets and civilian jumpsuits.

Passing through the moving crowd Connor reached up to scratch at his scalp, casually brushing his thumb over the hidden comm.'s bead in his ear.

"Checkmate, this is castle responding. ETA on the geese's position?"

"Five eggs Castle."

_Five minutes_

Connor glanced upwards, taking stock of the low rise factory buildings which boarded the plaza, their industrial outline shielding his eyes from the burning sun high above. Somewhere on the factory's rooftops Martinez, his pathfinders and two marine fire-team's backed up equal number of local Novagonian insurgents were setting up Anti-Aircraft nests and fall back points, preparing for what was to come.

"This is Castle to all groundside teams, confirm your current status."

"This is Bishop" Barker responded, "Status ripe."

"This is Rook" Chaucer responded, "Status also ripe."

Connor took a deep breath, closing his eyes for just a moment as he steeled himself against what had to be done. When the bullets started flying there would be no turning back.

Opening his eyes Connor surveyed the passing crowd. The Central plaza was perhaps the largest public space left in Novago, and even in these dark days of what was likely the city's final weeks, there was something reassuring that so many humans still passed through the square freely. Twisting his gaze over his shoulder Connor glimpsed Chaucer's face in the human press and knew her fighters were close by.

He had three severely under strength fire-teams supported by an equal number of indigenous Novagonian insurgents at ground level, thirty five men and women including himself. From the rooftops another twenty three resistance fighters watched and waited, ready to provide covering fire if needed.

They would need every single one of them to pull this off.

Dispensing with any further doubts Connor changed direction, making his way through the human crowd and towards the plaza's far edge, his fire support team following closely behind.

"This is Checkmate" Martinez reported from up high, "We have visual of geese."

"Confirm numbers" Connor replied.

There was a pause and Connor could hear hushed whispers on the receiving end of his lead path finder's radio. He bit his lower lip, about to repeat the order when his comm.'s bead crackled back to life in his ear.

"Four!"

"Checkmate please repeat" Connor replied, "Reconfirm number."

"There's four Castle" Martinez repeated, "Only four."

"Shit!" Connor muttered under his breath, _There were suppose to be twelve._

"Convoy now entering view" Chaucer reported.

At the very edge of the plaza Connor saw them. Four armoured Shadow transports escorted by two patrol Spectre's skimming down the boulevard and into the plaza's adjacent side street.

"Thirty seconds" Barker hissed over the comm.'s, "Gear up people, lock and load."

"Castle" Martinez voiced hurriedly, "We've got a Covenant foot patrol approaching the square from the east side."

"God damn it" Connor muttered, "Bishop delay that order. Checkmate what are you looking at?"

"Grunts" Martinez replied, "Jackal's and elites. Platoon strength at least, plus support units, moving towards the square."

"All teams prepare to engage" Barker ordered, "Weapons live, twenty seconds."

"Negative Bishop stand down" Connor hissed, "Mission is scrubbed."

"We're doing this Major" Barker growled through gritted teeth, "We've invested too much to back out now."

"Bishop you will stand down and await orders" Connor seethed. The Covenant convoy was halfway down the street now. In another fifteen seconds they'd clear the junction at the end of the road and be out of the plaza completely. Connor tapped his comm.'s bead again. Silence filled the line.

"Pawn" Barker radioed suddenly, "Engage!"

The ambush kicked off just as they'd planned.

A civilian modelled Warthog sped across the junction lancing in front of the Covenant convoy, its gears screaming as the driver executed a handbrake turn arcing his vehicle across the intersection at the edge of the street. The Covenant hovercraft swerved to avoid the collision, the bulbous Shadow transports and sleek Spectre's spearing out along the road, one of two of them grating their smooth hulls on the pavement.

The driver scrambled out of his seat even as the Covenant soldiers, huge swarthy brutes were emerging from their own vehicles. The thickly built aliens were gesturing angrily, barking unintelligible yet undeniably brutal threats at who they no doubt assumed to be a lowly human civilian flouting the transport ban.

This was it. They were committed.

_Damn you Barker!_

"Move" Connor shouted, the crowd around him parting as he pulled free his MA5B battle rifle, "All units engage!" he screamed into his comm.'s bead.

A missile streaked down from the rooftops and scored a direct hit on the lead Spectre. With a deafening explosion the dozen or so brutes scrambled for cover as their lead vehicle went up in a plume of pressurised flames whilst a hail of small arms fire slammed straight into their convoy.

The human crowd reeled back from the square in terror as the brutes returned fire, their shots sporadic as if they were unsure as to exactly where their attackers were.

The human troops seized the initiative. Connor's marines and former constabulary officers surged through the writhing mob, emerging across the open plaza to pin the Covenant brutes under their interlocking fields of fire.

Connor dived forward as a burst of luminous blue plasma flashed past his helmet. Three yards away a fleeing woman screamed as a lancing beam of energy sliced through her chest and sent the civilian tumbling to the ground in a vicious spectacle of spurting arterial blood and flaying limbs.

Connor's tucked his head into his chest as his shoulder struck the ground. Cart wheeling into a text book military crouch he snapped his rifle up and fired stitching a Covenant brute with a three round burst across the chest. The alien was between cover and went down hard. Dead or wounded he wouldn't be getting up soon.

"Contacts, contacts" screamed one of his marines. Connor risked a glance over his shoulder knowing that his cover was non-existent. In one fleeting second he saw what his panicked marines were seeing, and his worst fears were confirmed.

Covenant troops stormed into the square. Dozens of grunts, some lugging heavy plasma cannons. Jackal's with carbines and portable wrist gauntlets, and at least thirty elites. Martinez had been if anything optimistic in his assessment, this wasn't a platoon, it was a whole company.

"Covering fire" Connor screamed, watching as two of his marines were cut down in a hail of scorching plasma. The surviving humans dropped to their bellies and returned fire, doing there best to minimize their profiles as the Covenant hosed down the plaza. From the corner of his eye Connor could see scores of fleeing civilians were being gunned down with indiscriminate fury, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Martinez we need covering fire" he shouted loosing a burst of fire at the oncoming grunts.

"Moving to support" Martinez radioed back, "Be aware, Covenant air support has been sighted."

"Acknowledged."

He dropped a grunt with a single shot to the head, the alien punching backwards with a sickening lurch.

The Covenant were responding faster then he'd believed possible. If their gunship's appeared above the human resistance fighters while they were pinned down by the Covenant ground troops they'd be massacred.

He had to get this rolled up fast.

"Leah, chap a squad to my flank, double time!"

"There on their way" Leah replied, "Thompson keep those bastards pinned" she screamed over the gunfire.

"Leah, Barker, prepare to advance on targets" Connor shouted. He was firing his rifle one handed now, his other hand dipping into the backpack over his shoulder. His fingers found the strap and with bullets and plasma flying all around him Connor pulled the heavy satchel charge from his pack.

_Barker, I'll kill you for this!_

* * *

"Contacts sighted. Engage!" Veskeriee yelled.

Primitive human projectiles and explosives rained down on the side street like hailstones cutting down anything that loitered in the open a moment to long.

Nakitee cursed their heathen race with all the venom her soul could muster as she sprinted across the plaza's edge, Falshree and two other Terrestrials hard on her heels. The four Sangheili took cover beneath a crudely bricked archway as plasma weapons and slug throwers let loose all around them.

Sweeping her carbine around the street corner Nakitee squeezed of a volley of lancing plasma beams towards the plaza where the majority of the humans muzzle fire seemed to be grouped. Without pause Nakitee ducked back behind the wall as a torrent of propelled metallic slugs smashed into the brickwork a second later.

"The vermin will burn for this!" one of the Sangheili hissed from behind.

"At least they finally show the courage to face us" Falshree shouted over the roiling gunfire, "I was getting board with them not shooting back."

The female fixed Nakitee's friend with a cold glare, "You're enjoying this aren't you?"

Across the street Nakitee watched as a handful of Unggoy led by three Terrestrial's tried to make a break from cover and advance on the square. Human small arms fire zeroed in on them from both ground level and up high. The auxiliary Unggoy died in droves whilst one of the Sangheili screamed as a high powered gauss round tore straight through her energy shielding and punched a fist sized hole in her shoulder. Veskeriee appeared from the thick smog that now chocked the street and dragged the wounded soldier to cover.

"Ahrmonree what do you see?" the veteran shouted.

"Sharp shooters spread along the rooftops" the sniper shouted back. Nakitee glimpsed the sniper a few paces ahead crouched behind the burnt out shell of a human motor vehicle.

"Two, maybe three squads plus fire support" Ahrmonree continued, "Heavy weapons and explosive launchers."

Veskeriee popped up from behind her cover faster than Nakitee thought possible and loosed a salvo from her storm rifle. Nakitee followed her commander's arc of fire and saw at least two human shaped figures in the plaza lurch back in a spurting haze of crimson blood.

They'd been running between cover and she'd hit them both.

"We have to reach the convoy or their dead" Veskeriee shouted as she ducked back behind her cover.

"Let them die" someone retorted, "Their Jiralhanae, scum!"

"Silence" Veskeriee roared, "Tasmansee take control of the rearguard and lay down covering fire, concentrate your heavy weapons on the rooftops. Ahrmonree take two fourunit's and a support squad of Kig-yar and flank them, try to pin down their troops in the plaza. The rest of us will make a push for the convoy."

"This will be bloody" Zakamee warned.

"We have no choice" Veskeriee shouted, "Move!"

Thirty Sangheili backed by over a hundred Unggoy and Kig-yar auxiliaries broke out of the street.

Even with the support of Tasmansee and the other Terrestrial heavy weapon specialists the plaza was a killing ground. The Unggoy as usual took the brunt of punishment, the human's small arms fire tearing a fare number of them to pieces as the Covenant soldiers pushed into the square. The Kig-yar did their best to cover the advance, shielding their comrades with their oval wrist gauntlets yet a fair number still fell to concentrated projectile fire. Nakitee dived and rolled as a burst of human bullets raked her shields. The Sangheili took refuge behind a shattered market stool, Zakamee rolling into cover beside her, the female's seldom used Needler clasped over her gauntlet.

They had a clear site of the convoy now. The Jiralhanae were putting up a worthy fight, yet even with their attending Unggoy Nakitee could see that less than a dozen still stood. Many were wounded and the humans were pouring down fire on them from all quarters.

"I can't see the insurgents" Zakamee shouted, "They are among the crowd."

Nakitee glanced over the market stool's edge. Zakamee was right. Despite the warzone the plaza had become hundreds of humans still packed the square. Some sheltered in shell holes or whatever meagre cover they could find while others scrambled aimlessly about the square trying to avoid the crossfire. Every now and again Nakitee would glimpse a flash of metal as one of the human guerrillas raised a gun and fired in her direction, but then they were back among their kin indistinguishable from the crowd.

It made it next to impossible for the Sangheili to identify and single out any of the armed human combatants.

"All Units" Veskeriee's voice cracked over the comm.'s, "Target every human in the square. No exceptions!"

Nakitee hesitated, Zakamee swearing beside her. She knew they were at war with the humans. She knew the Hierarch's had decreed their races complete and utter extermination, but something inside her rallied against the order.

Only a fraction of the humans were armed, there would be weaklings among them, young children surely. But still they were at war with them, and even now the human combatants poured fire on her lance and their allies, her fellow Sangheili, her sisters, her friends.

It took Nakitee a marginally longer fraction of time to quash her doubt then a great many of her fellow Terrestrials and their auxiliary troops, but the end result was the same.

The Covenant troops returned fire, hosing the plaza down with everything they had and making no distinction between human civilian and insurgent. Nakitee shouldered her carbine and opened fire, watching as scores of humans were cut down before her.

The enemy's return fire diminished but did not cease entirely, and if anything the number of surviving human marksmen targeting the convoy increased. Nakitee saw a Jiralhanae pitch backwards in a spurting fountain of arterial blood as human heavy machinegun fire nailed him to the wall.

"No!" Zakamee screamed, pitching towards her hooves. Nakitee stopped her before Zakamee could make a sprint to the wounded contractor, all but tackling the medic back to the ground.

"He may still be alive" Zakamee shouted.

"And if you die so will he" Nakitee shouted back.

Zakamee fumed and for a moment Nakitee feared she would have a fight on her hands however the medic returned to her firing position, loosing a few shots from her Needler.

Most of the human fire from the square had subsided as those insurgents still alive became pinned down between Ahrmonree's sharp shooters and Veskeriee's flanking attack. Nakitee switched her aim to the rooftops where a great number of the humans still raked the plaza with fire. Catching one of the alien's in her crosshairs Nakitee's clawed forefinger curled around her carbines trigger. She caught the human with a lancing beam shot straight through its throat, toppling the alien from the protective wall that capped the rooftop.

"There" someone shouted.

Nakitee averted her aim, glimpsing movement. Across the square a small number of humans sprinted from cover and made a beeline straight for the scattered convoy. Covenant small arms fire whistled around the charging humans yet their surviving companions on the rooftops still commanded the high ground and together they laid down a withering cascade of small calibre and missile fire, covering their comrade's suicidal advance.

Cursing the human's illogical barbarity Nakitee snapped her carbine to her shoulder, scanning the rooftops for a target. She need not have bothered.

Heavy covenant plasma rounds smashed into the building, scattering the humans like leaves in the wind. Nakitee hissed vehemently as she tore her eyes away from her carbine's scope, momentarily dazed.

"Phantom's" Zakamee screamed with excitement as she thrust her gloved hand into the air. Nakitee followed the medic's claw like forefinger, catching site of the bulbous gunships outlines against the morning sun. There heavy plasma turrets swivelled towards square, drenching the entrenched humans with a deadly volley of high yield plasma rounds.

Nakitee rose from her cover and glanced towards the billowing smoke that now obscured the plaza's edge. Incredulously two of the humans emerged from the churning haze undeterred and dived beneath the Shadow transports.

* * *

The warriors of the Special Operation's Group had been waiting for this.

Juha' Relusee glanced over the edge of the Phantom's troop bay, one hand clasped on the Unggoy support gunner's shoulder, the other curled around the plasma rifle at his hip.

The humans had finally decided to fight!

"This is it?" Tasolmee asked dubiously from beside him, "By the convoy distress call you would think that they were almost overrun."

"Jiralhanae and terrestrials" Texlusee hissed with a dismissive wave of her claws, "What did you expect from primates and part time warriors?"

Kilshree and the four other Special Operations Sangheili crammed into the Phantom's hold chuckled at the female's remark.

Truth be told Relusee could already see the human ambush had failed. Only a handful of isolated human pockets remained scattered about the square, pinned down by the terrestrial legionnaires. Now as the three Phantom gunships poured fire and death down on the alien snipers along the plaza's surrounding rooftops from above, the human's position looked increasingly bleak.

Still, one could never be too careful.

Relusee touched a talon like finger to his helm, "Fourunit's three and five take the rooftops" he ordered, "Four and six you'll be dropping down with us. We'll be moving in to support the terrestrials northern flank attack. Acknowledge orders."

Sixteen Sangheili warriors rune's flashed in his helms retina display. Relusee twisted down towards the Unggoy support gunner by his side.

"Ignore the humans on the rooftops and concentrate your fire on those in the square. Understand?"

"Yes Excellency" the diminutive alien cried.

"Good grunt" Relusee replied, giving the Unggoy slave soldier a reassuring thump in the small of its back. Human slang may have been a blasphemous perversion of more civilised tongues, but certain words from their language had proved heretically infectious among the Covenant ranks.

"Finally" Tasolmee brawled from behind him as he thumbed open the Phantom's gravity iris, "Time for some fun."

Relusee leapt into the gravity lift, Tasolmee, Texlusee, Kilshree and the rest of the Sangheili Special Operation warrior's right behind him.

The familiar sense of weightless vertigo swept past him as he drifted freefall down the gravity chute, and then his hooves touched down on the human plaza below.

"Move, move, move!" Relusee bellowed.

Sporadic human gunfire ricocheted around them as Relusee, Tasolmee, Texlusee and Relusee dived to their stomachs and returned fire, their fellow warriors sprinting for cover. Texlusee cut down two armed humans in quick succession while Tasolmee all but ripped a third apart with his Focus rifle. With drilled efficiency their fellow fourunit took up position behind a human storage hut and laid down covering fire allowing Relusee's own companions in turn to push up the human's flank and find their own cover. The two fourunit's continued their pattern of alternating dash and cover until they reached the terrestrial legionnaires at the far end of the plaza.

"Who's in command here?" Relusee shouted over the heavy swoosh and of crackle of Covenant plasma and human small arms fire.

"That would be me" replied a slimly built Sangheili female, "Legionnaire Ahrmonree, squad leader, terrestrial first class."

"Figure's" Texlusee chorused from beside him as she snapped up over the barricade and caught a third human with a lancing beam to the chest. Tasolmee ducked down beside them with the sharp shooter to his immediate right and another female terrestrial to his left. If Ahrmonree took offense at Texlusee's little dig, she didn't show it.

"What's the current situation?" Relusee asked.

"The humans kicked off their ambush just as we were entering the plaza" Ahrmonree replied, ducking her head down just as a hail of human projectiles peppered the area around them, "Blocked off a logistics convoy then took out the escorts with missiles. Our lance tried to flank them from both angles and pin them down but they had snipers on the rooftops."

"Have they tried to withdraw?"

Ahrmonree shook her head, "The verminous little pink skins are proving unusually stubborn. We must have killed over half of them but their dug in like a Talakreche skin-rash. They must know they can't breach the Shadows hull's with their missiles, their armour's too thick."

Relusee knew the humans better than that, this wasn't a random insurgent attack. This had been a planned ambush with a legitimate target in mind, the convoy. The humans wouldn't risk a prolonged shootout unless they still believed they had a chance of destroying the armoured Shadow's. Their conventional missiles wouldn't do it, and neither would their grenades.

"Falshree!"

Tasolmee's sudden outburst distracted Relusee from his trail of thought. Turning he saw the thickly built warrior and the female terrestrial beside him had stopped firing and were staring at each other in momentary surprise.

What was he doing?

Relusee stared at the female. She seemed familiar to him, but where had he seen her?

The tavern back on Sepheria Luminare!

_Ancient Maker_ Relusee thought, _What were the odds?_

"Tasolmee" Texlusee shouted breaking them all out of their momentary trance, "Impregnate her later, fight now!"

"Forerunners Grace" Tasolmee laughed as he returned fire over the barricade, his onetime love interest hammering away with her own storm rifle beside him, "This day just keeps getting better and better."

"Sappers" Relusee realized suddenly, "Their making a direct run on the convoy."

"What?" Ahrmonree hissed.

"Kilshree with me" Relusee said, "The rest of you hold your position here."

Before the terrestrial squad leader could repeat her question Relusee was sprinting back across the plaza's edge, Kilshree hard on his hooves. By the time they reached the adjacent side street where the convoy was scattered both Sangheili were driven to cover by the increased human small arms fire which seemed to zero in on them from nowhere.

"We should really burn a warning rune on Tasolmee armour" Kilshree panted, "Me and you hold him down, and Texlusee plasma burns it onto his breast plate."

Relusee wasn't listening. His attention was on the closest Shadow. They were so close.

"Relusee?" Kilshree asked.

"Cover me."

Without waiting for a response Relusee took off at a run, moving straight for the convoy. A dead Jiralhanae was crouched against the first Shadow, his chest a ruined mess of human gunshot wounds.

He was perhaps twenty paces away when he saw them, two human male's standing watch beside the Phantom transport whilst a third was crawling out from beneath the transport, a female.

He knew it!

Relusee killed the first human male with a single plasma round to the head. The second human twisted towards him and stitched his Relusee's energy shields with a three round burst from his rifle. Relusee dropped him with a return shot, two plasma bolts to the chest and one to the head. He angled his rifle towards the female to fire, and missed.

Relusee would have sworn if he'd had time. The shot had been perfect, but the human female had been in the process of twisting the face him, and his plasma bolt glanced off her flak vest. He was already in the process of readjusting his aim as the female raised her submachine gun one handed and fired.

The solid slug projectiles stripped his already weakened shields to their bare reserves. Warning lights flickered across Relusee's helm. With a curse he threw himself into the cover of a human market stall, giving his shields their precious few seconds to recharge.

As he emerged from cover he saw the human female dashing away from the Shadow, her back exposed. She was fast, faster then he would have given most humans credit for.

Relusee raised his plasma rifle, taking site of the human female. She was the verge of his effective range, fast but not fast enough.

The satchel charge the human insurgent had planted exploded there and then, lifting the first of the armoured Shadow transports into a plume of flaming wreckage. The explosion didn't kill Relusee, but it stripped his freshly recovered energy shielding bare and almost tore the plasma rifle from his grasp, his shot going wide.

A single stray human bullet then tore through the seal of his combat harness and punched straight through Relusee's ribcage. As blood pooled inside and out of his body the Special Operation's Sangheili slumped to his knees, his single lung struggling not to collapse under the weight of his internal bleeding.

With a last agonizing breath Relusee keeled over and lost consciousness.

* * *

Suka' Nakitee had seen the Special Operation's Sangheili brave the human fire to reach the convoy, and as the first Shadow transport exploded she had watched him fall.

Wounded or dead, she could not say for certain which.

The humans had used sappers where their missiles and grenades had failed, charging head on into the convoy and planting shaped explosives manually. Now the Shadow transports were going up one by one, each thunderous explosion showing the plaza with flaming debris.

In the face of overwhelming force, the savages had proved irritably resourceful. Suka couldn't tell if she hated or admired them for that.

"Nakitee" Veskeriee appeared beside her, the veteran crouching low, her storm rifle gripped tightly in her gauntlets, "We've got a wounded Spec Ops in the street. The others are going to lay down covering fire while we retrieve him, watch for fire from the rooftops."

"I saw him fall" Nakitee replied, "He may already be dead."

Veskeriee shook her head, "Explosion nullified his shields and a human bullet punctured his combat seal. It'll be a deep flesh wound only, he's still alive."

"Yes Excellency" Nakitee responded, ejecting a spent cartridge from her carbine and slotting a new one home. This had been her first taste of combat against the humans, and it had been like nothing she had expected.

"Move" Veskeriee roared.

The two Sangheili vaunted the market stall. Veskeriee was already in front of her as their sister legionnaires laid down a volley of withering plasma fire to cover them. Nakitee and Veskeriee pounded forward zigzagging the sporadic human fire that peppered the street around them.

A human bullet smacked into Nakitee's thighguard, her protective shields flaring as the barrier deflected the round and almost knocking Nakitee of her hooves in the process. Veskeriee gripped the stumbling Sangheili by her forearm and pulled her too without breaking stride.

The wounded Special Operations Sangheili was bleeding onto the plaza when they came upon him. Veskeriee fired her storm rifle one handed whilst she help helped Nakitee support the injured warrior with her other. Together they hauled him back towards the cover of the market stalls.

Behind their improvised barrier Zakamee was tending to an injured Jiralhanae who had been dragged from the flaming wreckage of the convoy. All traces of the female's earlier nervousness seemed to have evaporated as she disposed with the dead and fought to try and keep the dying alive.

"The humans are disengaging" Ahrmonree reported, "The vermin are fleeing back towards the buildings."

"We must cleanse their structures" Veskeriee ordered, "Tasmansee move up to support. Ahrmonree pursue and engage, we'll take them on the flanks and catch them in a pincer movement."

"As you command, Excellency."

Across the plaza Nakitee could see the humans were falling back. Their numbers were less then she expected by the sheer volume of fire the aliens had been pouring down on them. She countered no more than two dozen fleeing towards the buildings on the plaza's far end. On the rooftops she could see Special Operations warriors storming the entrenched human positions. Two Phantoms had taken up position to support the Sangheili warriors and by all indications the fighting that was taking place up there was among the fiercest in the square.

"Warriors" Veskeriee shouted, "Pursue the humans, hunt them down and exterminate them!"

The terrestrial legionnaires and their supporting Kig-yar and Unggoy stormed across the square, a handful holding their positions to defend Zakamee and the other medically trained Sangheili as they tended to the wounded.

Veskeriee led the charge across the battle strewn square and over the adjacent side street. She smashed through the first doorway shoulder first as the Covenant troops stormed into the building behind her. Inside the drab human structure the terrestrial legionnaires fanned out clearing each room in turn. With a mental afterthought Nakitee activated her night vision retina, her helm illuminating the gloomy store rooms and winding corridors.

There was movement ahead. Squat ugly creatures piled into the corridor before them.

"Movement!" someone shouted.

In that fleeting moment humans and Sangheili twisted to face each other. Weapons were raised as Nakitee caught full sight of the vermin, and then all hell broke loose.

Scorching plasma and ionized particle beams were met with the heavy chatter of human projectile weapons.

Nakitee ducked into the nearest doorway as tracer fire stitched the wall beside her. Jarring out from behind her cover she caught a human in the sight of her carbine and fired, the lancing beam punched straight through the creature's abdomen and in the darkness she saw crimson blood splash against the walls.

"They have the main approach covered" Veskeriee shouted. With a sharp crack of her claws Veskeriee separated out a couple of the Sangheili legionnaires, "You two, keep them pinned down. The rest of us will peel out, circle around and take them from the flanks."

The two nominated Sangheili and the remaining Kig-yar laid down a hail of covering fire with their plasma and storm rifles as the terrestrials fanned out to either side of the corridor. Veskeriee led three Sangheili including Nakitee and twice as many Unggoy into the next room. There they came to a junction with two doors separated by an antiquated fireplace. Veskeriee and one terrestrial took the door to the right whilst Nakitee, four Unggoy and the remaining terrestrial took the door on the left.

They entered a large storeroom, its floor mostly empty barring a small number of stacked shipping crates and a pile of discarded rubble. The crunch of glass under their hooves halted both Sangheili in their tracks. The Unggoy paused uncertainly, nervously fingering their plasma pistols.

Human tracer fire tore through the far wall raking the storeroom with projectiles. Nakitee rolled to the ground as the bullets whizzed past her helm. Two of the Unggoy were killed instantly as heavy calibre rounds tore through their meagre armour, the second terrestrial letting out a blood curding scream as human small arms fire stripped down her shielding and tore straight through her thigh.

"Their firing through the walls" Nakitee screamed into her comm.'s bead.

The door on the far side of the storeroom smashed open, two humans suddenly emerging from the corridor behind, their rifles raised. Nakitee dropped the first with her carbine, her supporting Unggoy scattering in fear as the second ducked and rolled nimbly dodging her next shot.

Before Nakitee could draw a bead on him the human charged her, a metal bayonet strapped to the barrel of his crude firearm.

Nakitee back stepped the human's first thrust, dropping her carbine as she snagged the nozzle of the rifle between her arm and breastplate, and in the darkness she engaged in a violent scuffle with the human. Igniting the plasma blade in her wrist gauntlet Nakitee made a counter swipe at the human's throat. The alien blocked her thrust with an elbow to her forearm. Taking full advantage of her superior strength and size Nakitee forced the human back and crushed it against the wall. A metallic combat knife suddenly appeared in the humans other hand as he made a downward cut for the chest that her personnel shield deflected. The deadly brawl pressed on for a few more agonizing seconds before Nakitee clamped her free hand over the human's throat. Her claw like thumb pieced his jugular whilst one of her long gloved fingers stabbed down between his brow and eyeball. The human let out one last rasping scream as she crushed its windpipe in her grasp.

Finally the human went limp and she laid the small creature to the ground, dead.

"The humans are routing" Veskeriee shouted over the internal comm.'s, "All units report."

"Banshee's have arrived" someone reported, "Their washing the ambush site with plasma. No return fire I repeat, no return fire."

Scooping up her carbine Nakitee proceeded towards her groaning sister, the two surviving Unggoy emerging from their hiding holes to secure the room.

Kneeling down Nakitee began to swathe the terrestrial's wounded leg with med-gel.

"All units secure the area" Veskeriee ordered, "Reinforcements are on their way."

* * *

The Covenant descended on the Carthaginian central plaza in short order, a full attack squadron of Phantom gunships supported by dozens of Banshee interceptors flocking above the square. Within an hour of the first shot being fired the surrounding city blocks were swarming with almost half a Covenant field legion.

Hopelessly outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and outgunned, the human insurgents went to ground. Resistance cells dispersed throughout the city, squads scattering far and wide.

It was every soldier for themselves.

The Covenant hunted Connor's former combat platoon relentlessly, hounding the fatigued human marines like animals. Company sized detachments of jackals and elites supported by towering armoured hunters stormed the city streets whilst snipers patrolled every rooftop.

Connor led his battered and beleaguered troops into a headlong retreat, scrambling from one hiding place to the next as they desperately tried to avoid the closing net of Covenant troops. His squads regrouped at the eastern creek bed at the edge of the city. There they slipped into the filthy freezing water of the canal and cut across the business district of Novago, slipping out of the former docks towards the lake. It was the following morning that the sodden and exhausted soldiers trudged their way across the frozen mudflats and quick marched up to the protective canopy of the surrounding rainforest. It took Connor's troops another six hours to loop their way back towards the city and the disused chemical plant that served as their safe house.

The moment Connor glimpsed Barker, he saw red.

Thrusting his battle rifle into Sergeant Anderson's chest, Anderson dropped his pack and went straight for the meaty police sergeant.

"You Bastard!" he shouted, swinging at the burly Carthaginian with both fists. Barker twisted to face him and blocked the Major's intended punch with his forearm before Connor jabbed forward with his other fist and landed a solid blow to Constable's stomach.

The two officers grappled, Barker landing a powerful kick to his upper thigh while Connor tackled him backwards and pinned him to the wall.

"Why?" Connor all but screamed in Barker's face, "There'll kill hundreds of us for this, thousands!"

"They were dead anyway" Barker growled, "We were all dead the moment your UNSC chums decided to jack ship and run."

A powerful arm hooked around Connor's throat and hauled him backwards in a chokehold. Cursing profanely Connor glimpsed Chaucer from the corner of his eye. The Lieutenant forced him back from Barker with surprising strength.

"You two trying to kill each other won't help anyone" the Lieutenant shouted as she manoeuvred herself between them. Connor made another attempt at Barker but Chaucer pushed him back with a hand to his chest.

"We can't let them retaliate against the civilians" he growled finally, "It'll be a massacre."

"What do you suggest we do?" queried Barker sarcastically, "Hand ourselves over at the nearest Covie checkpoint?"

"Not us, just you!"

Barker whipped out a knife from his boot and grasped it before him, "Just try it you piece of Earther Scum!"

Connor's marines drew their pistols. Behind Barker Connor could see the other Constabulary officer's nervously reaching towards their own sidearm's.

"There's nothing we can do" Chaucer said, "Except wait."


	5. Chapter 4 – Reprisal

**Chapter 4 – Reprisal**

**Location: Covenant Occupied Human Colony World New Carthage**

**Date: 13 / 02 / 2545 (Human Military Calendar)**

**1 Day after the events of Chapter 3**

**48 Days prior to events of Prologue**

Juha' Relusee could not tell if he was alive or dead.

The engagement with the humans in the plaza ricocheted throughout the warrior's throbbing skull like a superheated plaza spark in a reactor chamber. With stark lucidity he remembered descending down the Phantom's gravity chute, human gunfire bursting all around him as he had sprinted towards the convoy, Kilshree hard on his heels.

The humans had planted shaped explosives beneath the armoured Shadows. He'd caught them in the act but was too late to stop them triggering the charges.

The transport had exploded right in front of him. The scorching heat of fifty units of raw technetium being incinerated had stripped his energy shielding, melted his armour's receptors and singed his skin beneath. A searing pain had ripped through his chest at that moment, smothering Relusee in the cold embrace of darkness.

Clever vermin, these humans were.

Most resourceful when they were at their most desperate, most dangerous when faced with certain annihilation.

Did all this mean he was dead?

Relusee tried to wake. Tried and failed.

His eyes were closed and refused to open, his mandibles slack when he tried to move them. His limbs were unresponsive, his chest still. He couldn't even feel his arms and legs, nor his tongue, eye lids or breath.

Did that mean they were no longer his to command?

Perhaps he was dead, and he was among the God's.

The thought kindled a long forgotten dread in the back of Relusee's mind. This darkness, the all consuming shadow of the night was not the paradise he had expected. In fact it was anything but!

Were the Forerunner's punishing him?

Had he done something wrong, something to incur their wrath?

Now he came to think of it, he could not imagine any worse torment then what he felt now. To be denied sight, smell, sound and touch. To be left with only his thoughts until, forever...

How long had he been here for already?

The terror that was quickly overcoming Relusee's subconscious just as abruptly faded as a new sensation took hold of him, a comforting warmth which spread throughout him, tingling the distant nerves throughout his body.

He was alive, he was sure of it now!

"_I need help"_

A female's voice!

Relusee stirred, and in the waking world the warrior's mandibles twitched.

"_Hold him down" _the female ordered. Relusee could feel something now, on his chest. His breastplate had been removed, and someone was probing at the soft flesh beneath. He could hear the rhythmic hum of a miniature anti-gravity generator, and the smell of singed flesh reeked above him.

A gravity-prong and laser-scalpel. The instrument's of a surgeon.

That couldn't be good!

What were they doing to him?

The warmth in his chest was a blister now, not quite painful but not entirely pleasant either.

Truth be told he could have been in either agony or ecstasy and likely wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. In all honesty Relusee imagined the only way he could tell if he was in the thrall of pleasure or pain was whether he knew if he was screaming or laughing.

At his sides his hands moved slightly, the sharp tips of his claws scraping at the soft lining of the gel-bed. There was blood there, his blood slowly being absorbed by the gel layer.

"_Forerunners Oath!" _his guardian seraph hissed above, _"Keep him still Commander."_

A heavy pressure settled on his shoulders, powerful hands were holding him down.

"_Why isn't he sedated?" _another voice asked, firm and seasoned. A male.

_Korequee?_

"_I've already induced sedatives into his blood stream" _the female replied angrily, _"Any more and we risk organ failure. Just keep him still."_

Relusee tried to talk, to tell them he was awake and ask what was going on, but his tongue remained stubbornly dry and limp in his mouth. Above him his apparent benefactors worked on oblivious to his semi-conscious state.

"_Their terrible things" _the female remarked above him.

"_What are?" _the male replied. It was Commander Korequee, he was certain of it now.

Something shifted inside him jolting Relusee with a sharp stab of pain. It was nothing he had not felt before, yet the ability not to react was unpleasant in the extreme.

"_Human projectiles"_ she finally replied.

Korequee snorted above him, _"A primitive design Healer."_

"_Primitive?"_ the evident healer retorted, _"Until they shatter into a dozen pieces and imbed themselves in every corner of your body. After that Commander I assure you, they become the most sophisticated of little killers. Internal bleeding, blood poisoning, septic shock, there is no end to the complications."_

The healer continued her work, and inside his chest Relusee felt something move again. Evidently whatever it was that he had lodged inside him was playing a most painful game of hide and seek with her instruments.

"_These projectiles are worse than usual." _she commented after a moment's pause.

"_How so?"_

"_The humans have expended most of their standard issue ammunition" _the healer replied, _"My guess is that they have secured an alternative supply, from locally produced materials. Standard human slugs are designed to penetrate with maxim force and punch straight through their target creating a clear entry and exit wound. These rounds on the other hand shatter on impact and tear themselves into the internal organs."_

Above him Korequee was silent, his hands still tightly clasped over Relusee's shoulders as he considered her words, _"You believe they planned this?"_

"_Unlikely" _the healer mused, _"As I said, their producing it locally, inferior materials. The ammunition is poor quality as a result, less likely to penetrate standard infantry shielding and armour. I've found the last piece, it's loose. Got you."_

Relusee felt her tear the last piece of human bullet fragment from his chest, and as the pain shot through his body his eyes opened as he let loose an agonized hiss.

"Relusee!"

Two figures materialized above him, a towering male and a slightly shorter female. Their outlines were a blur to his eyes, their features hazy. He made out Korequee first.

The Commander was in full armour. Whatever he'd been doing he come straight here to...

Where was he?

The female materialized over him a moment later. She was clad in an environmental body smock, her face hidden behind a chem-mask and her white gloves stained with blood. His blood.

"You're fine warrior" the female said. By her voice she was of mid age, significantly older then Relusee but likely a fare few cycles younger then Korequee.

"What happened..." Relusee coughed, "Where's my squ..."

"There fine Relusee" Korequee said, "Tasolmee, Texlusee and Kilshree are all unharmed."

The female leaned over him, discarding the human bullet fragment into a bedpan beside his stretcher, "My name is Sequesha. Mobile Field's Op's, I'm the ranking therapeutic officer in Central Command. You're in my field hospital."

Relusee tried to reply, but his mouth was utterly dry and his throat raw.

"No don't talk" Sequesha said as she reached down towards him, "I'm going to give you something for the pain."

Her claw like hand descended towards his eyes, the world above him disappearing beneath her palm.

"_Sleep" _she told him.

Relusee did as he was told. When the darkness came this time it was not entirely unpleasant.

He could still hear them talking above him. Their conversation had shifted, he could not recollect when.

"_How many Sequesha?" _Korequee was asking.

Sequesha's voice was sombre now, _"Three of your Special Operation warriors were killed Commander. Nine terrestrial legionnaires, fourteen Kig-yar auxiliaries, twenty seven Unggoy and eleven __Jiralhanae contractors. We're treating the wounded now."_

"_And the human insurgents?"_

"_So far we've uncovered over thirty bodies, their awaiting autopsy."_

Korequee was silent, evidently brooding over the numbers. Relusee knew the Commander would have known each of the three Special Operation's commandos by name. He'd be writing to their families tonight.

"_There will be retaliations, won't there?"_ Sequesha asked. Relusee noted a distinct sadness in her voice.

"_Most certainly."_

* * *

It was six hours later that the Covenant troops came to the makeshift human hospital.

Doctor Alam was between shifts, snatching a few precious minutes of sleep in his chair when the sound of splintered wood, panicked screams and course alien voices awoke him from his slumber.

Fumbling across his cramped office Alam threw on his dingy white lab coat as he made his way out the door, running straight into a young nurse in the outside corridor.

"Doctor, Doctor" the young woman stammered, "There here, there taking..."

"It's alright Mira" Alam said stroking her shoulder, "Listen to me. I need you to get Sarah Morgan, put her on a gurney and take her to the south side of the building. Get her into one of the elevators and tell the technicians to jam the cables between the fourth and fifth floors. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Doctor" Mira hiccupped, dabbing at her tear stained cheeks.

"Good girl" Alam smiled, "Go, Now."

The fresh faced nurse disappeared down the corridor, her hurried footsteps echoing down the hallway.

Taking a deep breath Alam made his way towards the ground floor. Whatever the commotion was, it seemed to be spreading from the reception area. At the staircase Alam quickened his pace. He could hear the alien's high pitched bellows now and recognized the thick rasping voices as those which belonged to the Covenant's irregular troops.

Brutes.

He was lucky that they hadn't started shooting people yet.

It was as he emerged from the lower stairway that Alam caught his first glimpse of the Covenant brutes. Three of the hulking alien warriors were poised in the central corridor to the wards, their dark matted fur overlaid with heavy combat harnesses and webbing. Sleek energy weapons were gripped in their powerful hands.

Facing the Covenant soldiers were a line of kneeling humans. Each had their hands tightly tethered behind their backs whilst a black hood covered their heads. As Alam watched another of the brutes emerged from the ward, dragging a screaming woman still clad in her medical gown towards the waiting prisoners.

Hostages!

Something snapped inside Alam. He could not simply stand by and do nothing.

"Stop!" he shouted.

The brute paused, twisting on its paw like heels towards him.

"Let her go" Alam said, his cheeks flushed with rage.

The brute turned towards his companions who were only now taking notice of the outspoken little human before them. Fang filled maws opened in jeers of laughter.

"I said let her go you fools" Alam raged, "She won't even survive the trip. She'll die before you can shoot her."

Apparently oblivious to his words the lead brute turned his back on Alam, cuffing the poor woman's hands behind her back.

"I said stop!" Alam shouted as he reached forward and grasped a tuft of fur on the brute's thick forearm.

A meaty fist backhanded him straight across the face, catapulting the Doctor backwards. Alam felt his cheek bones shatter as he hit the floor, his vision blackening suddenly behind a blinding white pain which spread from his crushed cheek and across his jaw until his entire face was immersed in agony.

Thick powerful fingers secured his hands behind his back whilst his wrists were binded by heavy shackles. He was aware of screams around him, and dully Alam felt a black hood being forced over his head before he was pulled to his feet.

Suddenly he was be shuffled forwards.

The freezing chill of the Carthaginian winter bit deep into his exposed skin as the shackled and blinded humans were herded outside.

His senses dulled and vision restricted, Alam stumbled down the hospital steps, cursing as he almost fell over another prisoner in the process. The tight press of humans caught him, leading him forwards towards the complete unknown.

Alam couldn't say how the first prisoners found their way into the Covenant transport vehicles, but where those prisoners went the others followed. Soon Alam was being forced to shamble over his fellow humans as more and more pressed against his back, the Covenant guards herding the humans at gunpoint until each of their waiting hovercraft's was packed full in turn. Once fully loaded the smooth _swoosh _of Covenant mechanics hummed around their enclosure. Alam clenched his teeth against the twisting pain in his stomach.

The journey was perhaps the worst of it.

The Covenant convoy glided away from the human hospital with faultless grace, banking their way through the streets of Novago with growing speed. Inside their sealed enclosure the humans sobbed, coughed and puked. Alam counted himself lucky to be confined to a corner; his head away from the floor.

The smell inside the vehicle was something else entirely.

He couldn't say with any certainty how long the hellish trip lasted.

When the convoy slewed to a halt, the doors opened on their compartment. As quickly as the humans were herded into the waiting transport, they were unloaded by powerful claw like hands and thick guttural hisses. The tether binding his hands was cut and the hood was yanked from his head before a gloved hand shoved him forwards.

Alam rallied against the bright sun, lifting his hands to cover his eyes as his pupils dilated painfully. Licking his dry lips Alam tried to gain a bearing on his surroundings, his vision a blotchy haze.

Complex Covenant energy's spire's rose up ensnaring the humans behind a shimmering translucent barrier six metres high. Alam stepped backwards as more human prisoners were herded into the enclosure, dozens of men, women and small children stumbling blindly into the sealed holding pen.

"What's going on!" someone shouted.

"What are they going to do to us?" a woman screamed.

Alam navigated his way through the crowd, pushing towards the edge of the enclosure. His vision was returning now and as he came to the energy barrier the world outside suddenly solidified into focus.

"The plaza" he realized.

The Covenant had clearly been busy.

The far corner of the plaza had been completed exhumed, the crushed paving and spoil piled at the edge of a trench which ran almost from one end of the plaza to the other. In the centre of the former market square the Covenant had erected some kind of raised platform which was occupied by a handful of elites clad in gleaming armour of silver and gold. More standardized Covenant infantry lined the streets that linked the plaza's four corners. Alam glimpsed barricades with mounted plasma cannons, parked troops transports and patrol vehicles while elite and jackal snipers patrolled the surrounding rooftops.

There had to be an entire Covenant battalion if not a full regiment gathered into that square, and there was something else behind the ranks of massed troops.

Humans!

Alam blinked, rubbing at his eyes to make sure it was not a trick of the light. Behind the Covenant checkpoint's and barrier's humans in the hundreds were filling into the side streets, their sheer volume quickly filling all available space. There would soon be thousands.

Alam clenched his hands behind his back, biting his lower lip. This was clearly not going to be a quick a clear affair as he'd expected, out of immediate sight and mind.

The Covenant wanted a public execution.

"What happening?"

The words were innocent enough, the voice softly spoken yet they still caught Alam by surprise as he twisted around.

A young boy no older than twelve was standing beside him, his pale face looking up at the Doctor. He was dreadfully thin, his skin was pallid while his body showed signs of emancipation. He was perhaps a year older then Alex.

_Please let him be spared this horror_ Alam prayed.

Around them other humans had begun to gather as the prisoners began to flock towards the enclosure's edge. The child's question was repeated by a hundred others. Some people sobbed, some screamed vile obscenities at the alien troops. Others broke down and cried while a handful remained deathly silent.

Alam thought of his wife back on Earth, tracing her lavender smooth hair with his fingers.

It had been so many months since he had last seen her. God how he yearned for her touch now.

Alam knew he was going to die here.

He had known it for so long now, but only now did he realize with true finality that he would never love anyone as he loved her.

Almost subconsciously his hand moved to the boy's shoulder.

"It'll be ok" he said, "This will all be over very soon."

Outside a detachment of Covenant soldiers were moving towards the enclosure. The unit's leader swept a claw like hand before one of the spires, a hidden signal in the alien's armour deactivating a portion of the barrier.

Without a word the elites stormed into the pen, pulling out humans seemingly at random.

Alam countered thirty humans leaving the enclosure, the Covenant officer reactivating the energy barrier before turning back towards the square. The remaining human prisoners looked on sullenly as their compatriots were marched towards the exhumed trench in a shambling single line flanked on either side by Covenant troops.

Across the plaza Alam caught a flash of sunlight on armour. From behind the raised platform emerged a single line of elites, thirty in total, each carrying a sleek alien energy rifle.

A firing squad.

* * *

"A fitting punishment" Penance mused, grooming the fine stands of his chin hair between the two manicured nails of his knobbly misshapen fingers, "Would you not agree Commander?"

Commander Korequee glanced out from atop the raised platform overlooking the square, erected so the upper echelons of the Covenant occupation force could watch the coming punishment at their own leisure. First blood had not yet been spilled and the platform was already teaming with dozens of Sangheili military officers in burnished ceremonial armour, expensively robed San 'Shyuum officials and burly Jiralhanae mercenaries.

Down below a detachment of terrestrial legionnaire's had opened the holding pen and were escorting a selected group of at least two dozen humans towards the freshly dug trench at the edge of the square.

The moment stretched out around them as idle chatter filled the platform, a deathly silence descending on the plaza beneath.

"Am I talking to myself Commander?" Penance persisted, his voice marked by a stab of irritation.

"Apologies Excellency" Korequee replied curtly, "My mind had strayed to other matters."

Penance stared up at him, his thin lips curling downwards, "I hope it does not stray during battle Commander. I here an abundance of human projectiles at the wrong moment can be most unhealthy."

Korequee chuckled under his breath, thumping his chest with his clenched fist as he nosily cleared his throat. Penance may have been slimier then a Doisacan water snake, but his sense of humour could be invasively infectious at times.

Before he could respond Penance turned in his bobbling gravity throne, his gaze twisting over the Commander's shoulder.

"Our honoured guests have arrived" Penance declared as he raised his arms is ritual greeting.

Turning on his heel Korequee caught sight of a Sangheili in golden armour. It was the same zealot who had chaired their last council session, Field Master Ortz' Satoroquee.

The cantankerous old warrior was looking insufferably pleased with himself this day.

Fleet Master Talsharnee and High Priestess Ikarshree emerged from behind the Field Master, each attired in their ceremonial armour and robes. Ikarshree in particular looked stunningly beautiful to Korequee as she strode across the platform, the sunlight reflecting off her resplendent helm and breastplate.

Talsharnee paused by an attendant Kig-yar, pinning the harried waitress where she stood as he cleared the servant's tray of its two remaining wine glasses. As Korequee had come to expect Ikarshree refused the glass the Fleet Master offered her. Undeterred Talsharnee drained the wine he had offered to the High Priestess in one mouthful before returning the empty glass to the plate. The towering Sangheili let the Kig-yar waitress pass without further action or comment, his own wine glass still clutched in the his claw like hand.

"Finally" boomed Talsharnee as the three Sangheili reached the edge of the platform where Penance and Korequee stood, "We will teach these humans the price of their cowardly resistance."

"My sentiments exactly Fleet Master" Penance replied, his fingers returning to the drooping stubble beneath his chin, "Why the Commander and I were just discussing this very matter."

Talsharnee lent over the platform's protective rail, sipping his wine as he inspected the square.

"How many hostages have we taken?" he asked.

"Fifteen hundred" Satoroquee answered, "Scooped up from every corner of the city."

Talsharnee mulled over the figure, the wine swashing in his glass, "We should have taken more."

"I disagree" Ikarshree said.

Talsharnee turned towards the High Priestess, "You feel we are being too harsh on the humans?" he sneered sarcastically.

Ikarshree tilted her helm, her gauntleted claw like hands falling to her hips as she regarded the Fleet Master with a cold glare, "Any collective punishment we administer to the humans of this world will need to be matched or exceeded with every subsequent display of force. If we butcher one in every ten Fleet Master, our production will fall by that tenth. Do we then begin executing them because they cannot meet the work quotas on account of those we have already executed? Such a strategy I fear would prove counterproductive."

Talsharnee snorted dismissively but did not take the argument any further. Ikarshree looked down into the square, her eyes falling on the humans being led out to the execution point.

"I see we are butchering the healthiest of our slave labour force, again" she sighed.

"Is that a hint of disapproval I hear in your voice Seja?" Penance pried.

Ikarshree turned towards the prophet, sweeping the teaming human crowd around the plaza's edge with her claws, "A full quarter of this city's remaining population will be gathered into this square by the time these executions are done. What they learn here today is all we need concern ourselves with. We cannot predict how the human resistance will respond to our actions, I'll reserve my judgement until the consequences of this demonstration can be fully analyzed and appreciated."

"Spoken like a true scholar" Penance laughed.

In the plaza the first group of human hostages were almost at the edge of the trench. A few yards away the Sangheili designated to the initial firing squad were already preparing their weapons. Talsharnee ordered another drink from a passing waiter. Ikarshree looked on in stoic silence.

Korequee felt someone bump into him from behind. He turned to find a Sangheili female in his shadow. He knew her face.

"Commander" she said, her mandibles parting in surprise, "I'm sorry."

"Sequesha."

Korequee curled his arm around the Healer before she could protest, pulling her into the small circle which had developed at the edge of the platform. Talsharnee and Ikarshree were in the process of turning to see what the commotion was while Penance and Satoroquee had already fixed eyes on the medical officer.

"May I take it that this is the chief therapeutic officer charged with the survivors of the human's spineless attack here?" Penance asked softly.

"You are correct Excellency" Sequesha replied, "All of the wounded are now in a stable condition. I do not see any further complications developing, some have already returned to active duty."

Penance smiled, the wizened San' Shyuum adopting his favoured voice and posture of that of the paternal old grandfather, "Our warriors could not be any better care, I am sure. The entire Covenant owes your profession a great debt healer."

He paused, gesturing towards the open plaza below. The humans were at the trench now. The terrestrials were lining them up next to each other, securing each human against a vertical pike at the trench's lip.

"A fitting punishment" Penance repeated, "They watered this very ground with the blood of our warriors, now we shall drench it with theirs."

Sequesha paused at the edge of the platform, her hands resting on the protective rail. The humans were screaming, thrashing against their restraints.

"Is it really necessary for their children to be among them?" Sequesha asked.

Satoroquee inhaled sharply.

Korequee glanced at Penance. For just a moment the Prophet's carefully crafted facade slipped and he saw a flash of pure anger. Talsharnee seemed amused by the remark while Ikarshree remained silent.

"The humans must know the full repercussions of their actions" Penance continued, "They must know that we will retaliate without prejudice or mercy. They must know that they are helpless against us. Do you not agree with our methods healer?"

Sequesha turned back towards the Prophet. Korequee saw the same pity in her eyes that he had seen in the Field Hospital, "Brutality breeds brutality Excellency, in its rawest most savage form. You hope splashing the blood of fifteen hundred humans today will cull their will to resist? I fear it will only entice them to greater violence."

"You feel we should spare their children?" Talsharnee remarked, his words laced with disgust.

Sequesha turned towards him, "I have my own child Fleet Master, five cycles of age. There will be humans down there of the same age, if not younger awaiting execution."

"You compare our young to these, verminous abominations" Talsharnee seethed. Korequee reached for the energy sword at his hip, ready to protect the healer if necessary.

Sequesha met the Fleet Master's furious gaze, her composure unchanged, "No, but it doesn't stop me seeing him among him them every time I lay eyes on that enclosure, and I will be far from the only one Fleet Master."

"Speak sense healer" Talsharnee growled.

Sequesha folded her arms, "I understand the execution squads are picked at random, each warrior partaking in one single execution per firing squad."

"Our warriors must be given the chance to avenge their kin" Talsharnee replied, "They must see as well as the humans our power over this world."

"Fifteen hundred warriors will partake in these executions" Sequesha remarked, "How many of them have family's Fleet Master? How many of them have children?"

"What concern is their family affairs healer?" Talsharnee growled, "Every warrior here knows the aim of our crusade, the complete eradication of humanity. They hate the humans with every fibre of their beings."

"Their hatred will make no difference Fleet Master" Sequesha replied calmly, "They will partake is this slaughter today, and every time they close their eyes they will see the faces of their children in those they have killed. The blood will stain their hands long after they have bathed and washed, until they claw the skin from their bones. I've seen it before."

"Enough of this preposterous nonsense" Talsharnee hissed has he turned back towards the square, "Satoroquee, begin the executions!"

Sequesha turned on her heel and made her way back from the edge of the platform, brushing past Korequee as she did so.

"Where are you going?" Penance called.

"I've already seen the results of one massacre this day" Sequesha replied over her shoulder, "I will not watch another."

The Honour Guard's on the platform moved to intercept her, but Penance waived them down with a dismissive swish of his fingers, "Let her go if she wishes."

Sequesha departed the raised platform without further comment, ceremony or commotion. Penance shook his head, muttering something under his breath as he turned towards the golden armoured Field Master, "Satoroquee, if you would be so kind?"

With a wave of his arm the zealot gave the signal. Down below the terrestrial officer shouted out an order. Thirty Sangheili warriors snapped up their storm rifles, took aim and fired.

Thirty humans were lacerated with lancing plasma bolts, their bodies lurching drunkenly backwards as the poles they were tethered too retracted back into the ground, their bindings coming undone as their corpses tumbled into the trench.

* * *

Halfway across the frozen city a small boy was sprinting through the deserted streets, not away from the central plaza in the direction that so many of his fellow humans were fleeing, but straight towards it.

Alex paused at a vacant intersection, leaning against an abandoned automobile as he struggled to regain his breath and find his bearings.

Sarah was safe, but they'd taken Alam!

Why had they taken Alam?

The hospital had been on the verge of chaos when Alex had arrived, his smuggled medical supplies a pathetic gesture against what the Covenant soldiers had taken from the humans. The panicked nurses and orderlies had been repeating one thing over and over.

The plaza, they had been taken to the plaza.

A sharp crack, like a bolt of thunder in the dead of night suddenly echoed across the city.

Alex flinched at the sound then stumbled, almost losing his footing in the snow. He recognized the sound of Covenant plasma rifles, the sound of many plasma rifles fired in mass.

The executions had begun.

"Alam" he gasped, taking off across the intersection.

It was ten, perhaps fifteen minutes later that the Covenant let loose their second volley of plasma rounds. A third round of directed plasma fire followed after another fifteen minutes, then a forth, then a fifth, and then a sixth and seventh.

Alex quickly lost count of the number of times the Covenant soldiers had fired their weapons. It had been over two hours since he had left the hospital. He was exhausted, sweat dripping from his temples and nose despite the snow that fell from the sky.

Was Alam even still alive?

It was just he passed beneath the Maxton overpass on Novago's west end that Alex saw movement. Hundreds of humans were being shepherded down the main thoroughfare. Dozens of heavily armed Covenant soldiers were lining the street, dogging the dishevelled and malnourished Carthaginians every step of the way.

Alex ducked into one of the side streets, forgoing any caution in favour of speed.

Luck was with him.

The alleyway was deserted. Alex rounded the street corner and emerged onto the edge of the Carthaginian central plaza. The square was thronged with humans. Hundreds if not thousands of them packed the plaza's adjacent streets. Bulbous Covenant checkpoints were posted at every entrance to the main square from which even more humans were being herded in and forced to watch the bloody executions.

Alex scrambled down the road, fighting and jostling against the crowd to get a clear view of the square. Clambering atop the metal frame of a burnt out warthog Alex caught his first clear glimpse of the central plaza.

He saw the Covenant observation platform, its armoured peek capped with small crowd of richly armoured elites. He saw the narrow slit trench at the edge of the square where a large group of elites in blue combat armour were dispersing, and finally Alex saw the fenced enclosure at the other side of the plaza where an equal number of humans were being dragged from by the Covenant guards.

"Alam!" Alex shouted, catching site of the Asian doctor among the small group.

Alam, still in his white lab coat turned to look at Alex. It was a brief fleeting glimpse of recognition before a swarthy ape like brute rounded on the Doctor and shoved him forward.

"Alam" Alex shouted again, cupping his hands either side of his mouth.

It was no use. The human prisoners were herded forwards towards the slit trench.

They were going to be executed.

Alex desperately scrambled down from the Warthog and sprinted down the road. He had to find a way into the square, he had to save Alam.

Reaching the junction on the plaza's corner Alex ducked beneath a parked Covenant troop transport, painfully grazing his shoulder on the hovercraft's slanted chassis. Emerging from the Shadow's other side Alex found himself in a small empty side street. At the alley's far end a Covenant checkpoint blocked the entrance to the plaza.

There were elites guarding the checkpoint, about half a dozen of the towering saurian like aliens and at least twice the number of the smaller grunts and jackals. They'd kill him if they saw him, but Alex didn't care.

Alam was the one constant in both his and his sister's lives. He'd protected Sarah since this hell had first begun.

The Covenant soldiers were distracted. All of them were looking towards the central plaza. Alam took off at a sprint, dashing straight towards the barricade. The Covenant soldier's attention remained fixated on the plaza, completely oblivious to the small boy's approach as the noise of thousands of humans crammed into the square drowned out the sound of his approaching footfalls.

Alex reached the barricade, using one of the strange alien storage crates as a foothold. The closest elite chose that moment to turn towards him, its lower mandibles parting in surprise as Alex gripped the protective barrier's edge and vaunted the barricade.

The alien reacted with terrifying speed, storming forwards and seizing Alex around the waist him a powerful arm.

"Alam!" he cried, catching site of his informal guardian.

Alam was at the edge of the slit trench now, his arms binded behind his back and his head blindfolded. A line of elites had taken up position in front of the prisoners, a row of sleek plasma rifles gripped in their gloved claws.

Alex thrashed and kicked against his captor as the alien soldier forced him to the ground. Across the square an elite in red crimson armour shouted an order to the assembled warriors. The elite's raised their plasma rifles, taking aim.

"Noooo!" Alex screamed.

* * *

**Fifteen Minutes Before**

Nakitee's assigned prisoner was a squat human female of middle aged, pink skinned with a pale complexion.

The terrestrial officer who was in command of the execution detail gave the order to take aim. Nakitee along with the twenty nine other Sangheili warriors raised their weapons, the stock of her storm rifle sliding up neatly against her shoulder as she sighted the prisoner in her holo-scope.

The humans were screaming now, writhing against their bindings which shackled them to the stakes at the edge of the trench. Her own hostage was shrieking under her hood, tearing the skin of her wrists as she tried to break loose her manacles.

The Sangheili officer gave the order to fire.

Nakitee shot her prisoner straight through the heart, praying the poor creature would die instantly. Down the line thirty human hostages lurched drunkenly against their restraints, and as the pike's retracted back into the ground their bindings were shed. The corpses tumbled backwards into the trench, some relatively cleanly, others less so.

Nakitee had killed before, but the sight of her prisoner's body somersaulting head over heels into the trench turned her stomach.

"Safe" the terrestrial officer yelled.

In perfect unison the Sangheili stood to ease, their rifles at their sides. The warrior beside her, a young male snickered under his breath. The square was deathly silent.

Finally the officer gave the order for the execution detail to disperse. Snapping up her rifle Nakitee turned and made her way back towards her unit's assigned checkpoint, the other Sangheili scattering back to their various sections and cohorts.

The next group of human prisoners were already being marshalled from the enclosure at the edge of the plaza, the Jiralhanae mercenaries herding them forwards at gunpoint.

Nakitee surveyed them as they past. There were males among them, females too. Humans of light skin complexion and humans of darker skin complexion. A small number of human children scampered along behind their elders, some smaller and no doubt younger than her brothers.

When she thought about that, Nakitee feared that she would throw up and thanked the Forerunners that her prisoner had been an adult.

But why did such a thought unsettle her?

By the God's they were just humans, barbarian vermin from the outer rim.

Her father had killed millions of them from the bridge of his cruiser, humans of all ages. Why was she so unsettled at the prospect of killing just one?

The humans passed her by without incident. The last human she set eyes on was a dark skinned male of middle age clad in what appeared to be an overly long white tunic.

Very strange, these humans she reflected.

Falshree greeted her back at their checkpoint with a mischievous grin.

"What was it like?" the backwater Sangheili asked.

Nakitee paused, unsure how to respond.

"Prolonged" she replied after an overly long delay.

Their Cohort's section had been assigned to watch over three side streets that led into the square. Nakitee immediate unit consisted of Falshree, Tasmansee, Ahrmonree, Zakamee and three other terrestrial Sangheili along with a support team of twelve Unggoy and six Kig-yar. Their checkpoint watched over a narrow human side street which had been closed to all foot and vehicle traffic.

"We should be flaying them" Tasmansee commented from the barricade, "Slowly, just as we did with those Pfhor raiders at Newfound."

Some of the terrestrial's murmured in agreement.

Some didn't.

From the corner of her eye Nakitee could see Zakamee had suddenly found something of interest in one of the storage crates. The female's mandibles were drawn tightly inwards, as if she was trying to bite back a retort.

"At least you got your turn" Falshree said folding her arms, "At this rate my number will never come up."

As if in immediate reply Major Domino Veskeriee appeared, seemingly and unnervingly from nowhere. The terrestrial's snapped to attention.

"Legionnaire Zera' Falshree" Veskeriee called.

"Yes Excellency" Falshree replied.

"You've been selected for the next firing detail, assume your position and await orders."

Falshree saluted. With the same mischievous grin she snapped up her storm rifle and sprinted towards the trench where the humans were already being lined up.

"Don't miss!" Ahrmonree called after her.

Nakitee settled back against the barricade to where Zakamee was still sorting through the storage crate. The other Sangheili along with the attending Unggoy and Kig-yar auxiliaries were watching as the humans were tethered to the raised stakes. The human crowd gathered around the plaza's edge had reached an most clamorous volume of noise now. Clearly they didn't want to be here.

_Let them watch_ Nakitee thought savagely, _As I watched my friends bleed and die here._

Falshree had gleefully taken her position among her fellow Sangheili. The warriors were in position now, the terrestrial officer at the end of the line giving the order to take aim. Something in that moment made Nakitee turn to what she suddenly realized was the sound of approaching footfalls masked by the rasping clamour of voices coming from the plaza.

A human youngling was at the checkpoint, clambering over the barrier. Pure instinct took over Nakitee actions. Her storm rifle was by her side, her plasma pistol still holstered at her hip and the child was already vaunting over the barricade. Nakitee twisted towards him and grasped the human whelp around his waist with her free arm.

Zakamee was already moving to support her, clasping a fully stocked needler over her gauntlet as Nakitee pulled the human down. The youngling fought against her with an almost laughable ferocity, swinging against her thigh guards and lower abdomen with swollen pudgy fists.

Across the square Nakitee was intuitively aware of the officer giving the final order, and then the execution detail fired.

* * *

Alam had known up until that very second that he was about to die. Tethered to the stake and blinded to the outside world, Alam had wept beneath his hood. The tears had not been for himself, for he was strangely at peace with what was about to happen.

He had wept for his patients that he'd been unable to save, for the patients that he still wouldn't be able to save. He'd wept for Alex Morgan and his sister, for all the humans that had died this far. Finally he had wept for his loved ones, those still alive on Earth, and those who had passed on.

"Saida" he'd whispered, "I'll always love you."

Alam was dully aware of the muffled sound of orders being given outside his hood. The sound of weapons being readied in unison, the sound of sobbing, screaming and all manner of curses and insult's being hurtled from desperate lips.

Alam arched his back and straightened his shoulders. If he was going to die he decided, he'd die standing tall.

"We'll meet again" he promised, "I love you!"

The Covenant execution squad fired.

Alam gasped, but there was nothing. No pain, no searing agony burning through his chest, nothing at all.

Was he dead or alive?

Was this death now?

He couldn't feel, or could he?

His shoulders tensed, and Alam was suddenly aware that falling snow was still tingling the hairs of his exposed skin.

* * *

"Why isn't that human dead?" Penance asked.

The question was not directed to anyone on the raised platform in particular. War Chieftain Vorackus had appeared by the elderly Prophet's side, the swarthy Jiralhanaechuckling under his breath as Satoroquee angrily gestured for an aide to get him a comm.'s link to the officer in command of the execution detail.

Korequee did not respond, his eyes remaining fixed on the square's edge.

Down below the lone human their attention was gathered upon was still tethered to his stake at the edge of the trench, alive and unharmed for all in the plaza to see. The prisoner's executioner, a terrestrial legionnaire by her armour's configuration was checking over her storm rifle, furiously striping the components of the barrel.

"I'm waiting for an answer" Penance persisted, "And would appreciate one before sunset."

"I..." Satoroquee began.

"Her weapon jammed Excellency" Korequee responded.

Both the Sangheili and San' Shyuum turned to face him. Penance's expression of barely concealed anger turned to one of tepid curiosity, "A result or poor maintenance?"

"Most likely a malfunction Excellency. One beyond the control of the weapon's owner." Korequee replied.

"How can you be sure?" Talsharnee mused.

Korequee flexed his shoulders, "The terrestrial in question is known to me Excellency, by association of one of my best warriors. She is a mischievous young female, but meticulous in her maintenance of state weaponry and armour. If I am correct the plasma chamber has magnetized, it prevents the catalyst from focusing the raw plasma stored in the rifle's energy chamber. It's a recent problem, but we estimate if effects one in every thousand shots, out of every hundred Storm rifles produced."

He could see Zel' Tasolmee from the corner of his eye. The towering warrior was poised at the edge of the execution square flanked by Texlusee and Kilshree, and by all indications he was in the midst of a hysterical laughing fit.

Penance paused for a moment, twisting his head towards the sky has he mulled over Korequee's words, "And this problem is well known to Central Military Command I take it?"

"It is more then known" Vorackus rumbled from beside the prophet, "As I can personally attest too."

All eyes turned towards the Jiralhanae chieftain. Talsharnee pursed his mandibles in evident distaste. Korequee was silent. He had not expected an ally in Vorackus.

"I purchased a shipment of storm rifles last cycle from the Qikostan Merchant Guild, a number of which turned out to be defective, but the Guild wouldn't have any of it. After a little digging I discovered they recently executed a change in their minor supplier's at the behest of their newly appointed Guild Master. The move was a disastrous blunder, the supplier provided untested materials. Both the Guild Council and Master are now locked in a statemate. Naturally they are trying to keep the matter under wraps. I've heard they've already put a bounty on the Kig-yar who arranged the contract."

"And as a result our warrior's lives are put at risk as a result of this, credit pinching foolishness" Penance mused, "A most unacceptable position."

The Prophet was silent as he deliberated. Almost as an afterthought he glanced back towards the square, "Ah yes. Commander, please deal with that."

Korequee signalled Tasolmee with a wave of his arm. The Special Operation's warrior gave acknowledgement, and with a savage downward stroke of his hand Korequee gave the order.

Tasolmee levelled his focus rifle at the human prisoner and fired. The charged particle beam struck the human with full force, rupturing his chest cavity and incinerating his upper torso with a calamity of flailing limbs and spurting partially boiled arterial blood. The hostage's corpse tumbled backwards in two parts, the spinal column snapping as it cartwheeled into the trench with its kin.

"Vorackus" Penance said softly.

"Yes Excellency"

"Circulate a rumour back to High Charity. The Qikostan Merchant Guild are partitioning the Ministry of War to service the Spinward Carrier fleet next cycle. Let them believe the Sepherian Star Combine has undercut their offer, significantly. I want to make them bleed a little."

"It will be done Excellency" Vorackus replied. Korequee noted a distinct edge of amusement in the Chieftain's tone.

"Then let us continue" Penance declared, clapping his hands together. Beneath them the execution squad dispersed back to their units.

It was to be a very long evening.

* * *

The human whelp screamed as the crack of Covenant storm rifles firing in mass ricocheted across the plaza, almost as if he himself had been on the receiving end of the execution detail's latest volley.

"Silence him now!" Zakamee hissed, a touch of panic in her voice.

Nakitee clamped her gloved hand over the human youngling's mouth, her long claw like fingers encircling his lower jaw and neck as she pinned him to her chest.

_Forerunners Grace_ Nakitee thought, _I barely laid a hand on him._

A quick glance over her shoulder told Nakitee that the little human's outburst had been confined to the three of them. The rest of her unit were preoccupied with some new drama unfolding in the plaza, whilst the incessant chatter of the human crowd was enough to drown out the child's feeble whimpers.

Nakitee knew their temporary safety would be a fleeting one. Tasmansee and Ahrmonree would shoot the child without hesitation, and that would leave Zakamee and Nakitee with some very unpleasant questions to answer at best.

"What do we do with it?" Zakamee asked, an edge of true fear in her voice. She was no doubt thinking of her own child now, and the ramifications of their actions here today.

Nakitee glanced over the barricade, spying a small alleyway a few paces from their checkpoint.

_Why am I doing this_ she thought, _Why do I even care?_

"Follow me" she hissed.

Nakitee led them around the barricade and into the side street, her curled arm locking the human child to her breastplate. As soon as they reached the alleyway Nakitee deposited the alien youngling to the ground with a less then gentle hoist. Zakamee took position behind her facing out into the side street, her weapon drawn.

"_Go!" _ Nakitee ordered in her best approximation of the human's language.

The child stumbled to his feet and with an almost paradoxical pause attempted to make his way around the Sangheili and back into the side street. Nakitee blushed in anger. Reaching down she thrust her claw like hand to the human's chest. The push was a touch more forceful then she had intended and the child stumbled backwards before losing his footing, again.

"_Go!" _Nakitee all but screamed, her storm rifle at her side. Her patience was wearing thin with this idiotic human brat.

The child glanced up at her, his skin pallid and eyes hazy.

The boy was a ghost.

Nakitee raised her hand, about to deliver a savage backhanded swipe to the child, just as her own mother cycles ago had shown the Sangheili child the back of her hand when she had misbehaved or spoken heresy.

The child's expression stopped her.

He was crying.

Nakitee's infant brothers flashed before her eyes, and something else. Days past, not that long ago, a forgotten alley somewhere in the city, splashed crimson with human blood. A small child hugged to her chest, Nakitee trying to protect him from what she saw, what her sisters intended to do.

_It couldn't be_ she thought, lowering her hand.

The moment stretched past. A dozen beats of her hearts, two dozen.

She could hear voices outside the alley, Zakamee cursing under her breath.

Nakitee raised her storm rifle, the energy weapon's sleek barrel brushing against the child's scalp.

The physical contact was enough to thaw him from his stupor.

The human stumbled backwards, turned and scrambled away on his hands, feet and knees like some half wild animal. Nakitee tracked the youngling with her weapon until he rounded the alleyway's edge.

"We must go" Zakamee hissed.

Nakitee turned back towards the side street, her claw like forefinger releasing the rifle's trigger guard. Together the two terrestrial legionnaire's scarpered back towards the checkpoint.

Luck had been with them, they had not been missed.


End file.
